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1 






A WATCH-KEY 


A NOVEL. 


BY KIBBB- 



Do not your juries give their verdict 
As if they felt the cause, not heard it ? 

And as they please, make matter of fact 
Run all on one side, as they’re pack’d.” 

Butler's Hudibras. 


RALEIGH: 

Edwards & Broughton, Publishers. 
1889. 








Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1889, 
By EDWARDS & BROUGHTON, 

In the office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington. 


TO 


That Peerless Virginian, 

JUDGE D. A. HINTON, 

OF THE 

COURT OF APPEALS, 


THE Author (a North Carolinian), 

TAKES THE LIBERTY OF RESPECTFULLY INSCRIBING 

THIS VOLUME. 


I 



A WATCH-KEY. 


CHAPTER I. 

In all the realm of the commonplace, can anything 
more commonplace be conceived of than a watch-key? 
A ring now, or a bracelet, or almost any other trinket, 
can be easily impressed into the service of sentiment; 
but a watch-key is hopelessly prosaic — purely utilitarian. 
The one whose history I propose o make my theme, was, 
perhaps, the most unpretentious piece of jewelry in the 
establishment in which we find it when our story opens. 
Beside it lay rings of every description, eloquent of sweet 
betrothals, of happy bridals, of tender partings ; lockets, 
between whose jeweled lids would one day repose the 
images of loved dead faces, with locks of treasured hair 
from foreheads hidden away under coffin-lids. Oh ! the 
tears that would one day be shed, the kisses that would 
one day be pressed upon those cold, insensate things! 
One could imagine it all. But a watch key ! One could 
scarcely imagine anything less calculated to have a history. 

“Watch-keys, if you please.” 

The speaker was a strikingly handsome young man, but 
so undersized as to be necessarily effeminate looking. A 
clean-shaven face added to his almost girlish appearance. 
“ Pretty enough to be a v/oman,” was the rather equivocal 
compliment which had often been passed upon him. 
Good-looking he certainly was, but no reader of counte- 
nance would ever call his a good face, for, in spite of all 


6 


A WATCPI-KEY. 


that Nature had done for it in the way of features and 
coloring, it was yet stamped with the insignia of charac- 
ter — was the face of a thoroughly selfish man. And your 
thoroughly selfish man is a rara avis, a being outside the 
rank and file of ordinary humanity — all the pessimistic 
philosophers of the nineteenth century to the contrary 
notwithstanding. Selfish, the average human animal 
may be, as regards his attitude towards the world in 
general ; but how rare is the man who has not some dearer 
self, some wife, or child, or friend, or love, for whom he 
would willingly labor, and suffer if need be. Society would 
disintegrate in less than a decade, and every man’s hand 
be against every other man’s, but for this beautiful cement 
of brotherly and fatherly and neighborly love which binds 
us so closely together. We see its operation upon even 
the coarsest natures. That rough mechanic, who has been 
verbally abusing his hod-carriers all day, and who has just 
wrangled with his employer over a matter of fifty cents 
in their settlement, stops at a toy-shop on the way home 
and invests a part of his hard earnings in a doll, whose 
wonderful feat of opening and shutting her eyes will 
bring delight to a little maid who watches for him at the 
door of his humble home. His hard features relax at 
thought of that fond meeting. Self retreats into the 
background, and this alter ego takes its place. 

Poor indeed is the man who has not some such posses- 
sion ; whose heart shrines no idol but Self ; who knows 
not the luxury of loving. 

The man we have under discussion was just such an 
one. He lived for self, and self alone, and yet this was 
his wedding-day. Even now his bride-elect was waiting 
to receive him ; and yet he lingered, carelessly tossing 
over the keys which the jeweler’s clerk laid down before 


A WATCH-KEY. 


7 


him on the counter, trying one after another upon his 
watch, until he succeeded in finding one which fitted it. 

“ Tliis will do, I think,” he said at last, pushing the 
others aside. “ What is the price of it ? ” 

“ One dollar,” said the obsequious clerk. “ Can I show 
you anything else?” 

“ One dollar ! ” How they must have laughed — the 
grim Fates! How they must often laugh, as we poor 
fore-doomed mortals toy, all unknowing, with our destiny, 
like children upon the brink of a precipice unheeded in 
their play. 

It was the work of a moment for a bright gold dollar 
and this insignificant bit of metal to exchange hands — 
the one being transferred to the jeweler’s coffers, the 
other attached to the watch-chain of his customer. 

An hour later, that customer was leaving Richmond, 
Va., on the South Carolina bound train, in the companion- 
ship of a lady whose pretty, piquant face attracted the 
attention of almost everybody on the cars. 

“A runaway couple. I’ll bet anything,” said one astute 
young gentleman, as he ogled the handsome pair through 
his pince-nez glasses, “ and bound for South Carolina, too, 
I’ll warrant, for that girl is a minor and couldn’t marry 
without her parents’ consent.” 

And so it was. Pretty, romantic Florence Lydia Mason 
(that was the name on the big Saratoga in the baggage- 
car) had cut adrift from the home and friends of her child- 
hood, to marry this acquaintance of a few weeks’ stand- 
ing, who insisted upon having their relations with each 
other kept “ a dead secret ; ” and she was willing enough, 
poor child. It was so much more romantic, this clandes- 
tine tour and marriage, to the humdrum, common- 
place way of marrying at home, with everybody knowing 


8 


A WATCH-KEY. 


everything about it. There was a touch of adventure 
about the whole proceedings that delighted this devourer 
of sensational novels. She was a veritable heroine at 
last, and a heroine with a secret ; that was the most delight- 
ful part of the whole proceedings. How she would laugh 
in her sleeve at being introduced as Miss Mason, when 
she had been entitled to another name and prefix for 
weeks or more perhaps ! And what an altogether charming 
thing the eclaircisseinent would be, when she informed 
her friends and relatives how she had fooled them all ! 

She was not to return home immediately. The pro- 
gramme (gotten up by the groom-elect) was for her to 
take a position as governess, which had been offered her 
by a lady living in the mountains of Virginia, at whose 
home he would make occasions to visit her, at intervals, 
until such time as their marriage could be made public. 
Thus friends at home could be satisfied as to her where- 
abouts. 

A pleased smile flitted athwart the girl’s pretty face as 
she mentally congratulated herself upon the complete- 
ness of all the arrangements. A very pretty face it was, 
and one that was eloquent of all sweet possibilities ; one 
could easily imagine this face the nucleus of a happy 
home; it seemed made, in its soft loveliness, for the 
caresses of little lips and the clasp of little fingers ; an 
imaginative eye- could see the happy wife and mother 
down the vista of the years ; it was the uppermost sug- 
gestion of the face. Just as the lovely, unfolding bud 
foreshadows the full-blown rose, did this girlish face fore- 
shadow all beautiful possibilities of tenderness and peace. 
But we have all heard of the canker in the bud — have all 
seen the trail of that deadly worm which sometimes preys 
upon the rose’s heart until its last petal has faded and 


A WATCH-KEY. 


9 


fallen away. Alas ! for this pretty human rose — the 
canker-worm of an inordinate vanity was at its root! 
Admiration was the breath of this woman’s life; she was 
one of those pretty mendicants for masculine favor who, 
in some sort, importune every man they meet for that 
alms of adulation upon which they subsist, and without 
which constant stimulus life is meaningless to them. Not 
a healthy moral regimen that, but one that sometimes 
leads to dire result's. It had, in this instance, led Florence 
Lydia Mason away from parents and home, at the insti- 
gation of this comparative stranger, who had wooed, and 
now proposed to marry her, under the rose. 

Very impatient he seemed under the general scrutiny 
to which they were subjected. 

“ We seem to be the target of everybody’s eyes,” he 
said, a little testily. “ We might as well have labeled 
ourselves ‘runaway couple’ before we started.” 

“ Yes,” answered the girl, with a conscious blush, “ they 
have found us out, and, do you know, I have been 
thinking — ” 

“ What?” 

“ That perhaps it would have been better if we had 
had just one confidant. In case of an accident or any- 
thing — ” 

“ What sort of an accident ?” 

“ Oh ! nothing. Only there might be a railroad col- 
lision — ” 

“ Or an earthquake or a cyclone,’' supplemented her 
companion, laughing. “Well, they will have to occur 
speedily, if they expect to separate us, for we shall be 
man and wife in less than twenty minutes. We get off 
at the next station,” he added, lowering his voice. “ The 
magistrate who is to marry us — ” 


10 


A WATCH-KEY. 


“ Yorkville!” yelled the conductor, drowning the rest 
of the sentence, just as the train slackened its pace pre- 
paratory to stopping at the station. 

A carriage was in waiting for the matrimonially-inclined 
pair, and they were soon bowling pleasantly along over 
the smooth country road, en route for the residence of 
one Henry Lewis, Esq., who served his countrymen and 
countrywomen in the capacity of justice of the peace. 

His residence was soon reached, all preliminaries 
arranged, and in almost less time than it takes to chronicle 
the facts, Lydia Mason and the man for whom she had 
deserted home and friends were made one in the holy 
bonds of matrimony. The only witnesses of this mar- 
riage, besides the officiating magistrate, were his wife 
and daughter. Twenty-four hours later he fell dead of 
heart disease. Three months later they emigrated to the 
far West, leaving no traces behind them, and four months 

later the court-house of L county, with all its records, 

was burned to the ground. Strange trinity of circum- 
stances ! 

The newly-wedded pair returned immediately to York- 
ville, there to await the arrival of the evening train, which 
was to convey them — whither it concerns us not just here 
to know. 

A delightful drive they had on their way to the station, 
albeit neither of them was talkative. A strange taci- 
turnity seemed to have fallen upon them both. They 
looked away from each other’s faces to the fairer face of 
Nature, which, illumined with the sunset glory, beamed 
its summer evening benediction upon the world. “O 
foolish mortals!” it seemed to say, “be wise. Suspend 
your stir and strife, your mad, blind rushing after the 
gods of this world, and learn of me a lesson of repose.” 


A WATCH-KEY. 


II 


What an unspeakable calm there is about a summer 
evening sunset, and what an unspeakable sadness too ! 
The whole earth is weary ; it has panted under the noon- 
day’s sun and fainted beneath its rays ; its vigor is spent, 
and the languor of supreme exhaustion is upon it ; the 
triumphs and defeats of the day alike are over ; its fever- 
ish toil is past, and the guardian angel of Rest breathes 
his Benedicite upon the air. Heaven is very near us at 
such an hour. We can almost catch the echo of the 
angels’ songs, can almost feel the rushing of their wings. 

But, alas ! for this ill-starred husband and wife, their 
meditations were by no means heavenly in nature. She 
was thinking — poor, pretty, vain thing — of the admiring 
attention which her piquante face had attracted during 
the course of the day’s travel ; and he was thinking — epi- 
curean that he was — of nothing but the present hour. 
He had married this pretty face because it was pretty, 
and he fancied it for the time being. It was his present 
caprice. That was the beginning and ending of the 
matter with him. The future had no existence for this 
young man. The present horizoned his mental vision 
always. 


12 


A WATCH-KEY. 


CHAPTER IL 

What a camera-obscura view of the great world one 
obtains through the lens of life in a little country town! 
In the great bustling city life is all on the surface. One 
sees it all at a first glance — the din, and bustle, and stir, and 
strife; the mad race after wealth ; the feverish struggle for 
pre-eminence in church, or state, or social circle; the 
envy, the jealousies, the triumphs, the defeats, which are 
all incidents of the oft-repeated history of the ever-begin- 
ning, never-ending warfare of Ego versus the world. 

But how different the atmosphere of a quiet little coun- 
try town ! What an air of Arcadian simplicity about 
everything, a cosmopolitan would think; how quiet, how 
tame, how uneventful life must be in such a place. But 
tarry awhile. Sir Stranger. Put your eye to the lens of 
this small camera, and you will see therein reflected the 
same hopes, and fears, and passions, the same loves, and 
hates, and conflicts which go to make up life in the great 
world. That human nature is the same everywhere and 
in all ages, is a proverb almost too trite for repetition ; 
but it is as true as trite. One everywhere finds the devotee 
of Mammon, the demagogue who lives but in the echo 
of the world’s applauses, the disappointed self-seeker who 
has gall and wormwood upon his lips and deadliest hatred 
in his heart for the man who has been more fortunate 
than he ; and — thank God for the reverse picture — one 
also finds everywhere those sweet and lovely domestic 
graces, which go far towards redeeming human nature from 
the imputation of universal depravity. One sees every- 
where the patient, laborious father whose life is a tread- 


A WATCH-KEY. 


13 


mill of care for the little lives dependent upon him, 
but who has almost lost sight of the fact in the great 
love he bears them ; the self-sacrificing mother who lives 
entirely by proxy ; the self-constituted Sister of Charity 
who divines a neighbor’s needs by instinct, and always 
happens in the right place at the right time, yet never 
dreams that she is anything beyond the commonplace, 
but goes on diffusing the fragrance of her beautiful life 
on all around her, as simply and unconsciously as the 
flowers she so much resembles. One finds them all 
everywhere. It is the old, old story of the wheat and 
the tares, which this human soil of ours has brought forth 
in all the ages. 

But to return to our story, which has shifted its scenes 
from the bustling city of Richmond, Va., to the quiet little 
village of Milledgeville, some hundred or more miles dis- 
tant. Like most other Southern towns and villages, 
since our disastrous civil war, it was noticeably lacking in 
evidences of wealth. Its people were mostly well-to-do, 
but affluence was a thing of the past. The war had swept 
over it like a flood, and slavery and bank stock were not 
the only things engulfed ; the old open handed,’ open- 
hearted hospitality of ante-bellum times had gone under 
likewise; nobody kept open house any more; no one was 
able to do it, with one exception. Mrs. Susan Golding, a 
rich and childless widow lady, was the fairy godmother of 
Milledgeville; she it was who, mindful of her own youth, 
gave theyoung people of that placean experienceof amuse- 
ments and festivities which would otherwise have been to 
them a tradition ; she threw open her spacious parlors, and 
spread her bountiful table for their entertainment with a 
frequency and generosity which excited their liveliest grati- 
tude. Is it necessary to add that she was the social 


14 


A WATCH-KEY. 


autocrat of the place? No one thought of dissenting 
from her opinion upon any subject ; she was Milledge- 
ville’s supreme court of appeals. There was nothing 
arbitrary, however, about her rule ; it was the sceptre of 
love that she wielded, the crown of affection that she 
wore in her beautiful old age. 

“ None knew her but to love her, 

None named her but to praise.” 

But with all the great love and reverence it bore her, 
Milledgeville remembered that she was mortal, and, so 
remembering, surmised, often and variously, as to what 
testamentary disposition she would make of her fortune. 
“ Who will be Mrs. Golding’s heir?” was a question often 
put, and never satisfactorily answered, by the gossips of 
Milledgeville. There were no lack of candidates for the 
position among her own and her husband’s relatives : 
there were the Masons, eight in number, who were promi- 
nent claimants, and one of whom, Florence Lydia, she 
had educated and partially reared ; then, there were the 
Clavering boys, Tillet and Tunstal, nephews of her own, 
to whom she was warmly attached, and to whom she 
always' affectionately alluded as “ my boys.” One of 
them had made his home entirely with her for years, and 
the other, although claiming a home with his parents in 
an adjoining county, yet spent three-fourths of his time 
at “Aunt Susan’s.” 

They were the beaux, par excellence, of Milledgeville 
society — Mrs. Golding’s bo3’s. Only one of them was in 
Milledgeville when our story opens — Tillet Clavering. 
Tunstal had been absent some weeks on a business trip, 
but was expected shortly. 

A letter he had just written to his aunt from Rich- 
mond, and whose contents had transpired, in some one of 


A WATCH-KEY. 


*5 


the many unaccountable ways that things do manage to 
get out in a small place like Milledgeville, was being 
excitedly discussed by a circle of ladies, who had con- 
vened in the Methodist parsonage for the purpose of 
getting up a church fair. The business proper of the 
meeting had been quite suspended by the animated dis- 
cussion of this letter. 

“ It is the most unaccountable thing I ever heard of in 
my life,” Mrs. Talons was saying. She was the news 
emporium of Milledgeville, this lady, and was known 
among some of the facetiously-disposed young people as 
the “ Daily Chronicle.” “It is the most unaccountable 
thing I ever heard of in my life,” she repeated, “that 
Lydia Mason should go off, in this way, without a word 
of warning to her aunt. What she wanted to go at all 
for puzzles me. She certainly didn’t need to do it. Mrs. 
Golding always was opposed to her teaching school, even 
here at home ; and to go way up in the mountains, without 
even consulting her aunt on the subject ! ” 

Here Mrs. Talons paused to take breath. 

“I don’t think she has written to Mrs. Golding yet,” 
she added presently. “Tunstall Clavering saw her in 
Richmond — she was visiting the Bakers there, you know — 
and learned of her determination for the first time. He 
writes his aunt that she left Richmond Tuesday for Bath.” 

The lady paused to note the effect of this tremendous 
announcement.” 

“ Has there been any difficulty between her and Mrs. 
Golding?” suggested one of the other ladies. “Lydia is 
very high-tempered, you know.” 

“ Yes, but L3^dia knows who to be high tempered with,” 
said Mrs. lalons impressively. “ She has too much sense 
to cut her own throat with Mrs. Golding in that way; 


i6 


A WATCH-KEY. 


she is more likely to have quarreled with the boys, I 
think.” 

“ Mrs. Golding wants to marry her to one of them, so 
it is rumored,” said the lady who had answered Mrs. 
Talons before. 

“To which one?” queried that lady, scoring a mental 
item for her columns. “ I hadn’t heard of that before. 
To which one of the boys does Mrs. Golding want to 
marry Lydia ? ” 

“ I don’t suppose it makes any difference to her. Her 
idea, you know, is to combine the heirship. Whichever 
one marries Lydia will get the lion’s share of Mrs. Gold- 
ing’s property.” 

“ You are very much mistaken about that.” 

The lady who spoke at this juncture merits more than 
a passing notice. She had the air of one who feels her- 
self the observed of all observers. Her smallest observa- 
tions were made in that oracular tone which seemed to 
say, “ Listen, all ! I, Mrs. Lavinia Bragg, have spoken.” 
Therefore it was, that, when she made the commonplace 
observation, “You are very much mistaken about that,” 
the words seemed no longer commonplace, but were 
invested with a dignity and majesty befitting their high 
source. 

Mrs. Bragg always felt herself upon a throne. She, 
also, had earned a sobriquet at the hands of the fun-lov- 
ing young people of Milledgeville ; in certain circles she 
was never spoken of by any other name than the “ Pre- 
siding Elder.” There was one person in Milledgeville, 
however, that she was powerless to awe ; with all her 
majesty, she could never keep down the vivacious little 
“Chronicle.” Mrs. Talons “knew Lavinia Bragg by 
heart ; ” knew all the little subterfuges resorted to by 


A WATCH-KEY. 


17 


that majestic lady to keep up appearances — to keep up a 
first class style of living on a second-class purse ; knew 
of all the little domestic infelicities so studiously ignored ; 
knew every jar of the household machinery, which it was 
the pride and pleasure of Mrs. Bragg to hold up to the 
public gaze as running entirely without friction. Hers 
was the ideal household ; no disturbances of any sort 
entered therein ; her servants were jewels ; her only child 
and daughter a paragon of filial affection, and her hus- 
band — the crowning glory of all — that pure and unadul- 
terated piece of fiction, the perpetual lover. 

Mrs. Talons’ expression of countenance when listen- 
ing to this wholesale braggardism was truly edifying. 
No coat of armor less impenetrable than Mrs. Bragg’s 
self-complacency would have been proof' against the 
arrows of her significant glance. But Mrs. Bragg’s self- 
complacency was impenetrable; the keenest shafts of 
irony and sarcasm fell harmlessly away from its invulner- 
able surface. 

She detected no lurking satire now in Mrs. Talons’ 
reply to her remark just recorded, “You are very much 
mistaken about that.” 

“That may very easily be,” she (Mrs. Talons) replied, 
taking the conversation upon herself, as she almost always 
did. “That may easily be. IVe (emphasizing the pro- 
noun) are all of us fallible. Do tell us all about it, now. 
You are Mrs. Golding’s privy counsellor, everybody 
knows.” 

Now, the facts, with which everybody was acquainted, 
were these: It was Mrs. Bragg’s darling hope and ambi- 
tion to be elected to the high post of Mrs. Golding’s 
bosom friend and confidant. She had toadied the old 
lady persistently and untiringly for years, without the 


A WATCH-KEY. 


I8 

shadow of a reward, except such as existed in her own 
imagination ; indeed, some of the very uncharitable were 
prone to believe that Mrs. Golding avoided her as she 
would the plague. That she was after one of Mrs. 
Golding’s boys for her daughter Ellen was an open secret. 
Everybody knew it and laughed about it. There was a 
repressed smile upon all faces when she spoke again : 

“ Mrs. Golding has done quite enough for Lydia Mason. 
We have talked over the matter frequently. I told Mrs. 
Golding that, if I were in her place, I should make no 
further objection to Lydia’s maintaining herself. It is 
eminently proper that she should do so. As far as her 
marrying one of ‘ the boys ’ is concerned — that is simply 
preposterous.” 

“ More preposterous things than that have happened,” 
said Mrs. Talons sententiously. “ It seems to me a very 
good way of adjusting all difficulties. The Masons and 
the Claverings have been pulling each other’s ears, for I 
don’t know how long, upon every possible pretext but the 
real one, which everybody knows is Mrs. Golding’s prop- 
erty — which shall come in for the biggest slice of that. 
I suspect the old lady has gotten tired of the wrangling, 
and thinks she will make this compromise, and spend the 
rest of her days in peace.” 

“ These family feuds are so distressing, so unchristian,” 
said Mrs. Bragg virtuously. “ It is strange that people 
will indulge in them.” 

“ Very strange, indeed,” said Mrs. Talons, with a whole 
dictionary of meaning in her voice. “ But stranger 
things than that happen every day. I have even heard 
of husbands and wives who were not on speaking terms — 
except in public,” she concluded, sotto voce. 

But the poison-tipped arrow glanced harmlessly away. 


A WATCH-KEY. 


19 

Mrs. Bragg preserved the same unruffled front. “ An 
earthquake wouldn’t startle that woman out of her self- 
complacency,” Tillet Clavering had been heard to remark 
upon one occasion. “ The opinion she has of herself is 
worth a fortune. I n^ver look at her but I think of those 
lines of Burns’ : 

‘ O wad some power the giftie ’d gie us 
To see oursels as ithers see us! ’ ” 

But to return to our sheep — as the French say. 

The ladies at the parsonage were in the midst of the 
amiable conversation just recorded, when the door opened 
and another was added to their number. A tall, graceful 
lady in deep mourning came forward into the room, and, 
after the usual salutations, seated herself by a window 
overlooking the street. 

“ What a beautiful day!” she said, throwing back her 
veil and disclosing a face which was beautiful, without 
the shadow of an excuse for it. What constituted Marian 
Herbert’s beauty, nobody could tell. Her features were 
not regular; she had no complexion to speak of; she 
was guilty of that unpardonable sin in a woman, red hair ; 
she was no longer young; and yet she was beautiful. 
Nobody denied her the palm. It was as if the beautiful 
soul shone through the transparent veil of the flesh, 
glorifying it, as spirit sometimes does glorify flesh. One 
thought instinctively, when looking at her, of attar of 
roses, the balm of a thousand flowers, and all other dis- 
tillations sweet and rare. From what rare and pure 
ancestral flowers must this human attar of roses have 
been distilled! what an heredity must be hers! what gen- 
erations of noble men and lovely women must be behind 
this most lovely woman in the ancestral line ! One felt 
all this instinctively ; and yet there was nothing pretentious 


20 


A WATGH-KEY. 


about her. She had no more pronounced characteristic 
than a sweet and noble simplicity. Mannerism was impos- 
sible to her — she had no more need of it than the Venus 
de Medici had for drapery. She could afford to be seen as 
she was. Alas! for the few of us wjio can say that — who 
can afford to appear what we really are — who have no 
need of that mask of conventionality, which ofttimes 
hides behind it so much of hollowness and insincerity, of 
evil tempers and unholy dispositions! But, now and 
then, from out “the madding crowd,” shines forth a face 
which needs no mask. We recognize it at a glance; it 
preaches to us more eloquently than all the sermons from 
all the pulpits in the land. “ It is worth while,” it seems 
to say, “ to live up to one’s higher nature — to put away 
from heart and mind all that would soil or defile them ; 
and it is no dreamer’s utopian fancy — this high ideal ; 
it is possible — attainable.” 

Marian Herbert had been preaching this unconscious 
sermon to all around her for years. The flowers she wore 
at her throat (she always wore flowers) exhaled no sweeter 
fragrance to the outward sense than their wearer did 
upon the moral atmosphere around her. People never 
talked scandal to Marian Herbert. She could tie even 
Mrs. Talons’ tongue. Her advent upon the present occa- 
sion turned the entire drift of conversation, the business 
of the meeting was at once entered upon, and gossip for 
awhile suspended. 

When all preliminaries had been satisfactorily arranged, 
there was a general departure. Miss Herbert and Mrs. 
Bragg leaving together. 

A greater contrast than the two ladies presented, as 
they walked beside each other down the quiet streets of 
Milledgeville, can scarcely be imagined. They were as 


A WATCH-KEY. 


21 


diverse in person and bearing, as in character, as a slender, 
graceful water-lily and a gaudy peony. The comparison 
is not inapt as regards either of them. Marian Herbert 
resembled nothing more than a snowy-petaled lily, and 
Mrs. Bragg was a veritable human peony ; and yet the 
peony has its admirers and its uses. It is hardy, for one 
thing ; its brilliant, odorless blossoms flourish where flow- 
ers of a more delicate bloom wither and die. 

The ladies parted at Mrs. Golding’s gate, Mrs. Bragg 
going in and Miss Herbert going on. She, too, stopped 
at the terminus of the street, entering a gate which led 
up to a large white frame house, which was almost lost to 
view among the tall trees which surrounded it. 

She walked up the front steps and proceeded straight 
through the open hall-door without knocking ; from the 
hall she entered the family sitting-room, and, finding that 
unoccupied, wandered into the rear regions of the house, 
where she encountered a servant. 

“ Why, Miss Marian, is that you ? ” the girl asked, look- 
ing up from the table at which she was sitting. “ Miss 
Sibyl is not in the house, but she is about the lot some- 
where. I will go and find her.” 

“ Never mind, Letty,” “ Miss Marian” answered consid- 
erately. “ I don’t want to stop you from your work. I 
will go back to the sitting room and wait for‘Tibby.’” 
This was Miss Herbert’s some-time pet name for her twin 
sister, Mrs. Sibyl Everett. 

That lady failing to make her appearance immediately, 
Miss Herbert on her return to the sitting room took up 
from the centre-table a square of embroidery which was 
lying thereon, with silk and needles in convenient reach. 
Her deft fingers were soon busy among its intricacies of 
design, and a light footfall behind her was unheeded. 


22 


A WATCH-KEY. 


She was first made aware of another presence in the room 
by a pair of soft hands placed over her eyes. She 
imprisoned the little fingers in her own and looked up 
with a smile. 

“Ah! it is you, Baby?” It was impossible for Miss 
Herbert to call anything she loved by its proper name. 
There was a caress in the very tones of her voice, as she 
now drew down beside her the smiling girlish face of her 
niece and namesake, Marian Everett. 

What a smiling face it was! What a blooming, radiant, 
joyous one! A face upon which care had never drawn a 
line — that was infantine in its absolute ignorance of the 
world and life; and, withal, it was beautiful — beautiful 
with that dazzling blonde beauty which, however ephem- 
eral it may be, eclipses all other while it lasts. If a fault 
could have been found with Marian Everett’s face, it 
would be that it lacked repose. She was always either 
laughing outright, or else on the verge of it. Her whole 
face dimpled over with merriment at the slightest provo- 
cation. “ The child enjoys life so,” her mother would 
say, looking at her wistfully; and she did — enjoyed it as 
the birds do, not one of whom was lighter-hearted than 
she. That the world was created for the sole purpose of 
people’s enjoying themselves in it, was article first of 
Marian’s creed. Care and sorrow were far-off abstractions 
to her ; that they were absolute verities, and existed some- 
where in the concrete, she believed, just as she did in the 
South Sea Islanders. Such a people existed, she sup- 
posed, and so did care and sorrow — somewhere upon the 
habitable glebe — but so far removed from her happy life, 
at such an immeasurable distance from her joyous, glad- 
some youth, that she never gave them a thought. 


A WATCH-KEY. 


23 


She was sitting now on a low ottoman at her aunt’s 
feet — the lovely face uplifted with its habitual riante 
expression. 

“ I have something to tell you, auntie,” she said, the 
carnation bloom on her cheek deepening a shade. “I 
have something to tell you.” 

“What is it. Baby?” 

“ Will you promise not to tell ? ” 

“ Why, is it so very great a secret as that ? ” 

For answer the bright golden head was nodded emphat- 
ically. 

“ A very great secret,” its owner said. 

“ Well, I promise,” said Miss Herbert, smiling fondly 
down upon the lovely girlish face. “What is it ? ” 

“ I am engaged to be married.” 


24 


A WATCH-KEY. 


CHAPTER III. 

“ I am engaged to be married,” she said, and the bright 
head was hidden instantly in Miss Herbert’s lap. 

For an instant that lady was silent, with one gentle hand 
laid caressingly upon the girl’s golden curls. She was think- 
ingof another head, once asgolden, nowthickly strewn with 
gray — of another face, once as joyous, now care-lined and 
sorrow-marked, beyond recognition almost. As if evoked 
by the spell of her retrospective thoughts, that face 
appeared in the doorway. A moment later, its owner, 
Mrs. Everett, had come forward into the room, greeted 
her sister, and was seated beside that lady, Marian junior 
having beaten a hasty retreat upon her mother’s entrance. 

“ I am so glad to see you, Marian,” that mother said. 
“ I have been thinking of you all day. My Marian — ” 

“Yes; she told me,” said Miss Herbert quickly. • Jt is 
Tillet Clavering, of course?” she added interrogatively. 

“Yes, it is Tillet Clavering, of course,” answered the 
mother. “ He is the only one of her admirers, as you 
know, that she ever cared for. But oh ! Marian, she is so 
young — so young! ” and the mother’s voice broke down 
in a sob almost. 

It was strikingly like her daughter’s — that mother’s 
face. The two resembled painfully. The elder face 
looked beside the younger like the fulfillment of a sad 
prophecy. There were the same clear blue eyes, the same 
exquisitely moulded features, the same alabaster skin. 
Thus much for the likeness, but alas! and alas! for the 
difference between the young face, unsullied by care, and 
the older one, so lined and furrowed by it ! 


A WATCH-KEY. 


25 


No great tragedy had ever entered into this woman’s 
life ; she had no “ story ; ” her life had been uneventful in 
the extreme — too uneventful. There had just been a 
slow ebbing away of youth, and hope, and life in the. 
treadmill of a large family. At sixteen, Sibyl Herbert 
had married the man who had since made her a good 
husband, as the world counts good husbands; that is, he 
had amply provided for all her physical wants and been 
invariably kind to her, as the world counts kindness. 
No one would have been more unsparingly denunciative 
of an unkind husband than Mr. Everett ; but he was a 
man integrally prosaic, who had taken unto himself a wife 
just as he would have purchased a horse or a dog, if he 
had needed one. He was a man who always performed his 
duty in every stage and circumstance of life. That it was 
pre-eminently every man’s duty at the proper age to marry 
and settle down into a steady, respectable citizen, was his 
steadfast belief, and he had acted upon it ; that it was his 
subsequent duty to make ample provision for his family, 
he believed also, and he had, likewise, done that ; there 
he conceived his duty ended. Of any finer needs than 
the mere physical — of any higher obligations incumbent 
upon him than that of supplying his wife with ample food 
and clothing, he had never even dreamed. She was fanciful, 
he thought — very fanciful. Nothing like the sensible, 
practical woman his neighbor, Mrs. Bragg, was, and, with- 
out the faintest intention of wounding her feelings, he let 
her see this every day. With this estimate of his lying 
like lead at her heart, the wife dragged on her sad and 
colorless existence, ceasing after awhile to look for either 
love or appreciation from the husband she had once so 
passionately loved. She had borne him ten children, 
seven vigorous, vivacious boys — the rearing of whom had 


2 


26 


A WATCH-KEY. 


drained her very life-blood — and three gentle little girls, 
two of whom slept in Milledgeville cemetery. The other, 
Marian, had grown up to womanhood, and in her the 
mother’s heart was garnered up. 

“ I never dreamed of her marrying so early,” said that 
mother sadly. “ I always intended that she should enjoy 
her young-ladyhood to the fullest extent. I never had 
any youth, as you know, and I have always felt a little 
hard towards my mother for letting me marry so young; 
and now my own daughter — O Marian!” the poor 
mother broke off suddenly, “ I couldn’t bear to see her 
go through what I have gone through. I think it would 
kill me to watch her fade and break as I have done ! If 
she could only make up her mind to live as you have 
done — I have sometimes hoped that, do you know?” 

“ She is too pretty for that, Tibby,” said Miss Herbert, 
smiling. “ You might as well make up your mind to her 
marrying. If it wasn’t Tillet Clavering, it would be some- 
body else. She was never cut out for an old maid.” 

“ I am not so certain but that that is the happier lot,” 
said Mrs. Everett slowly, “taking all things into consid- 
eration. Not that I am complaining of my husband at 
all,” she added with the wife’s quick loyalty — “ but the 
cares 1 Co Marian ! die cares of married life! You have 
no conception of them. One never feels at res^ The 
old fable of Atlas, bearing the world upon his shoulders, 
is most applicable to^ the mother of a large family ; onl^ 
it is upon her heart, instead of her shoulders, that the 
wmaan bears her domestic world^ And after all,” she 
went on, after a momenCj'~palJse,“ after all one’s care 
and anxiety — one’s sleepless nights and anxious days — 
somebody else comes in and reaps the harvest. Just as 
one’s child gets old enough to be a companion — to be 
the very joy of one’s life — some strange man walks in 


A WATCH-KEY. 


27 


and the poor mother has to stand back and give place to 
him. It is too hard,” this poor mother went on bitterly. 
“ Marian, I positively hate Tillet Clavering ! ” 

“O Sibyl! you mustn’t say that. I know just how 
you feel, but you mustn’t say that.” 

“ I shall never like him,” she repeated with emphasis; 
and she never did. 

For the matter of that, did any woman ever cordially 
like her son-in-law — prospective or otherwise? 

Has not the proverbial antagonism of son-in-law and 
mother-in-law its origin in one of the fundamental 
instincts of human nature ? 

“ What does Mr. Everett say about it ? ” said Miss 
Herbert, when her sister had finished speaking. 

“ He — oh ! he,” she began, when his step on the veran- 
dah arrested her. “ He is coming. Let him answer for 
himself,” she said wearily. 

“You two are holding a council of war, I suppose,” 
he said a moment later, when, after greeting his wife and 
Miss Herbert, he had seated himself beside the latter. 
“You two are holding a council of war, and it will not 
be very hard to guess the subject of it.” 

A word or two of description in regard to this gentle- 
man’s personal appearance may not be amiss here. He 
was a fine-looking man, with whom the world went well, 
and who showed that it did. A striking contrast in that 
respect he was to his pale, faded wife — a fact he had no 
hesitancy about calling her attention to. “ Why, Sibyl ! 
you positively look older than I do,” he would sometimes 
say, and then go off to his place of business, in the inno- 
cence of his heart, never dreaming that he had left behind 
him, in the heart of the woman he had sworn to love and 
cherish, a rankling barb. For the rest — to sum up his 


28 


A WATCH-KEY. 


character in a few words — Mr. Everett was a steady, reli- 
able, honorable man, who was invariably respected by all 
who knew him, and who would have made a woman of 
his own type a most excellent husband; but who was as 
incompetent to deal with the delicate mental mechanism 
of the woman he had married, as an elephant would be 
to perform on the aeolian harp. 

No one knew this better than his sister in-law, but she 
liked him cordially, nevertheless — liked him for what he 
was, not for what he was not. 

If we would all make up our minds to do this, there 
would be a deal more of happiness in the world. If we 
would just take our husbands, and friends, and kinsfolk, 
just as God and Nature, made them, appreciating their 
excellences and accepting their deficiencies, we would be 
infinitely happier than we are ; but a great many of us go 
through life, instead, in the futile endeavor to make bricks 
without straw — to put a quart of achievement into a pint 
measure of ability — poetic thoughts, and sentiments and 
feelings into minds Nature never fashioned to receive 
them. Failing in the effort — as all must fail who war 
against Nature — we grow morbid, and miserable, and 
hopeless, as Mfs. Everett had done. 

“ We were discussing our girl’s engagement,” she said 
to her husband, “and Marian had asked me your opinion 
of it just as you entered. Answer for yourself.” 

“I scarcely know what to answer,” said Mr. Everett, 
running his fingers through his hair, as was a habit with 
him when perplexed. “ I scarcely know what to answer, 
they are both so young. As far as the girl is concerned, 
that makes no difference; but a man, at that age, it is 
impossible to classify ; he is an unknown quantity entirely; 
he may turn out very well or very ill — one never knows 


A WATCH-KEY. 


29 


how to calculate for him. I know nothing against the 
boy,” he went on. “ He is perfectly steady, and his pros- 
pects, you know, in that direction ” (indicating Mrs. 
Golding’s residence by a wave of the hand) “ are fine. 
Mrs. Golding will certainly start both ‘ the boys ’ in busi- 
ness, if she does nothing more for them — I heard her say 
that myself — and a good start is half the battle. If a 
young man gets that and doesn’t succeed, he doesn’t 
deserve success. Upon the whole, if Mrs. Golding — ” 

“ Do, George, for patience sake, let Mrs. Golding rest,” 
said Mrs. Everett, interrupting him suddenly. “ I am so 
tired of hearing that poor woman dissected before she 
dies ! I don’t think there is anything talked about in 
Milledgeville but her and her property. If I were in her 
place, I would leave it to some charitable institution ; it 
would serve those Claverings and Masons just right. 
They have been wrangling over the heirship ever since 
Mr. Golding died. I don’t believe they care a straw for 
the old lady herself.” 

“You are mistaken about that, dear,” interposed Miss 
Herbert gently. “ The boys, I know, are devoted to her, 
and Lydia, I think, is too.” 

“ By the way,” said Mr. Everett, “ that reminds me of 
what I heard to day. They say that Lydia Mason has 
gone up in the mountains to teach school. Rather a 
strange move, that — isn’t it ? Can there have been any 
unpleasantness between her and her aunt, do you think ? ” 

Ting-aling-aling-ling ! The sharp tinkle of a bell here 
broke in upon the conversation. 

“ Supper,” said Mr. Everett, rising. “ Come in, Marian, 
and take tea with us.” 

Immediately after tea. Miss Herbert took leave. 
“ Father and mother will be anxious about me,” she said. 


30 


A WATCH-KEY. 


“ No, you needn’t bother about walking home with me ” 
(this to Mr. Everett, who had risen to accompany her). 
“ I wouldn’t be afraid to go alone anywhere in this lovely 
moonlight.” 

“ I shall go with you, nevertheless,” said Mr. Everett, 
smiling, “ unless you positively forbid it.” 

Miss Herbert did not do this, and a moment later Mrs. 
Everett was alone. 

She stood motionless a long while at the gate, to which 
she had accompanied them, watching the receding figures 
of her husband and sister, as they walked together down 
the moonlit street ; but she did not see them, save with 
the eyes of the body. The eyes of the mind were far 
away. 

The night was a perfect one — one of those peerless 
moonlight nights, when Nature seems to be lying under 
an enchantment. Who has not felt the spell of such a 
night — has not felt that supreme exaltation of the senses 
which lifts us out of the common work day world into the 
regions of pure spirit ! Like Byron, we feel — 

“ I live not in myself, but am become 
Portion of that around me.” 

One becomes swallowed up in Nature, at such a time. 
All personality seems to fade away — its littleness to be 
lost in the great silence and majesty of Nature. To 
attempt to describe such a night would be a profanation. 
One can only feel it to the very core. 

But there are times when we are impervious to such 
influences as these — when even the most ardent lovers of 
Nature turn away with a sick heart from her loveliest 
aspects. Such a time had come to this woman whose 
fortunes we are depicting. Keenly alive, as she was by 


A WATCH-KEY. 


31 


temperament, to such impressions, to every aspect of 
Nature, she was dead to them now. For her a black, 
black veil was over all the outer view. Her vision was 
introspective. She was living over her past life from the 
hour in which, a sixteen-year-old bride, she had entered 
upon that life term of domestic servitude which, for her, 
had known no palliation — which, for her, had been unal- 
leviated by that tender conjugal love and appreciation 
which are the only alleviations possible to it — are all that 
make it endurable under any circumstances. She was 
living this life over, by proxy, in the person of her idol- 
ized child. Even as her own had faded, in fancy she saw 
that loved cheek pale ; that sparkling eye grow dim ; that 
lovely face care-lined and haggard. It was more than she 
could bear. Uppermost of all was that thought, that 
sense of the intolerable. We can bear a great deal until 
that point is reached, and then Nature mutinies. The 
mother felt that it had been reached with her ; that she 
could not bear this new burden — she who had borne so 
much ; who had put away from her, long since, all personal 
hope, and desire, and ambition ; who had been content to 
live solely in and for her children. 

“ I cannot bear it,” she moaned. That was the burden 
of her cry. “Anything else,” she thought, “ anything 
else ! ” 

Ah ! what poor, purblind creatures we are, seeing only 
a step ahead of us — Quixote-like, expending our strength 
upon those wind-mills of imagination which are but the 
creations of our fevered fancies, until we have none left 
with which to combat the real troubles when they arise! 
If we would only husband our strength for them! — only 
stop taking trouble, as well as time, by the forelock, we 


32 


A WATCH-KEY. 


might be better able to bear it when it comes ; but the 
most of us keep on fighting our wind-mills to the last. 

A ringing step upon the pavement aroused Mrs. Everett 
from this imaginary warfare. Looking up, she saw — 
Tillet Clavering. Handsome, bright and debonair, he 
stood before her. 

“ May I come in?’' he said, smiling, and halting at the 
gate upon which she was leaning. “ May I come in ? ” 

She moved aside without a word. 

“ What insufferable conceit ! ” she thought. The care- 
less, easy grace with which he lifted the latch of the gate 
and came forward into the yard exasperated her. “ What 
a confident air he has ! ” she thought bitterly. It would 
have been hard, indeed, for him to have performed any 
action, just now, which would have been becoming in her 
sight. What an arbitrary tyrant is Prejudice! Some 
one we love comes into a room, picks up a chair, a book, 
or performs some other trivial action, and, to us, it is 
instinct with grace ; another comes in, whom we do not 
like, performs the identical action, and it is hideous to 
us — we attach some sinister significance to it. 

In blissful ignorance of Mrs. Everett’s unflattering 
mental strictures upon him, Tillet Clavering continued 
his way to the house, proceeding up the gravel walk to 
the front porch steps, upon which he halted a moment 
and looked around upon the beautiful moonlit night. 

The moonbeams flooded him with their magical glory, 
lighting up his handsome, boyish features, and resting 
like a halo upon his shining, silken hair. A very hand- 
some face it was ! Even Mrs. Everett couldn’t deny that ; 
and if there was a trifle of self-confidence in its expres- 
sion, it was only that supreme faith in everything, including 
self and the world alike, which is one of the prerogatives 


A WATCH-KEY. 


33 


of youth. This young man believed in himself and he 
believed in the world. The two were very good friends. 
The future spread out before him, a golden panorama of 
sunshine, and flowers, and song-birds, all of which were 
to be his for the taking ; and, as one would naturally be 
bewildered, if admitted into a conservatory of rarest 
flowers and told to cull ad libitum^ even so he was some- 
times perplexed as to which one of the many avenues of 
success open to him he should elect to walk in. Coun- 
try life or city life ; an establishment of his own or a 
home with his aunt ; immediate marriage and settling 
down, or a year’s foreign travel first — all these opportu- 
nities presented themselves to him, and he was at a loss 
to choose between them. 

“ I will leave it to Marian,” he thought, with a true 
lover’s loyalty. “ Whatever she says, I will do.” 

Even Mrs. Everett must have loved him, could she 
have seen the smile upon his face just now. It lighted 
that face up like sunshine. A sensitive face it was— too 
sensitive for a man’s, and yet not lacking in bravery ; 
there was a great deal of reserve force about it, beneath 
all its boyish levity ; “ true as steel ” was its frontal 
inscription ; the face, it was, of a man who would never 
desert a friend. . It was, also, just now, the face of a man 
very much in love, as might be readily conjectured from 
its expression, when Miss Everett, in person, responded 
to his knock for admission. 


34 


A WATCH-KEY. 


CHAPTER IV. 

Mrs. Bragg’s parlor, cool, quiet and shady — everything 
in matchless order, from the polished brass andirons to 
the much-patched carpet and the elaborately darned lace 
curtains; but the dim light (than which no other ever 
penetrated there) was friendly, and enabled both darns 
and patches to be skillfully hidden away in convenient 
folds and out-of-the-way corners. Only a very practiced 
eye — like Mrs. Talons’, for instance — could have detected 
them ; but they were there, and Mrs. Bragg was heartily 
tired of them. They contrasted so strongly with the 
elegant upholstery of Mrs. Golding’s reception-rooms, 
the mere sight of which made Mrs. Bragg sick with envy. 
Something had to be done. She had been revolving 
the situation in her mind for weeks. New carpet and 
curtains were absolutely indispensable ; but how w'ere they 
to be obtained? To go to Mr. Bragg for the money was 
entirely out of the question. That gentleman usually 
appropriated all surplus funds to his own personal grati- 
fication, expending them in such manner, and upon such 
persons, as made his long-sufferingwifefuriouswith unavail- 
ing rage. She was perfectly impotent, however — as what 
woman is not — to redress her wrongs, so she very sensibly 
ignored them, taking, month by month, from her grudg- 
ing lord’s hands the small sums doled out by him for 
housekeeping expenses, and turning over and economiz- 
ing them, with that truly admirable thrift and housewifely 
tact which was one of her best qualities; strange to say, 
however, it was a quality of whose exercise she was very 
heartily ashamed. That there was any need for her to 


A WATCH-KEY. 


35 


economize was a sore thorn in her flesh, and one that she 
made heroic efforts to conceal. From her usual style of 
conversation, one would infer that she was something 
less than a millionaire; she was always “going to do” 
something on a very magnificent scale, but, somehow or 
other, never got beyond the stage of “ going to do ” and 
“going to have.” She was determined, however, in this 
instance, to be as good as her word. She had told “ that 
meddling Sophie Talons,” on the occasion of that lady’s 
complimenting her, for about the ninety-ninth time, upon 
her beautiful darning stitch, as displayed upon the much- 
worn parlor curtains, that “ Henry was going to make 
her a birth-day present of a new parlor carpet and cur- 
tains.” That had “gone out,” and she could never face 
the public in general, or Sophie Talons in particular, if 
the boast were not made good. Urged on by this inex- 
orable necessity, she had made up her mind to a daring 
stroke of policy — had ordered the much-desired furniture, 
without a word of consultation with her liege lord. He 
couldn’t send them back, she argued, and she had made 
uj) her mind to brave his anger. 

The express wagon had just rolled away from her gate, 
leaving behind it the long coveted carpet and curtains 
and an immense weight of anxiety. 

Mrs. Bragg was nervous for once in her life. 

“ It is too late to be scared now, mamma,”^id her 
daughter, Ellen, who was seated on the roll of carpeting, 
which had not yet been removed from the porch, “ It is 
too late to be scared now. You will have to face the 
music. It won’t be very long before papa is here now,” 
.she continued, glancing down the street. “ It is nearly 
dinner-time. He can’t eat you — nor yet beat you,” she 
added, by way of consolation. 


3 ^ 


A WATCH-KEY. 


She was very plain — this young lady. Nature had been 
rather a step-dame to her. She was something less than 
average in both person and intellect, and she was twenty- 
five years old ; and yet Mrs. Bragg had set herself the 
task of finding a rich husband for this daughter. Though 
one prospective son-in-law after another had slipped 
through her fingers, she had not yet despaired of success — 
was making one last mighty effort to entrap Tunstall 
Clavering, a fact as well known to that young gentleman 
and, the public generally, as to herself. Hence, the carpet 
and curtains were more than ever indispensable. 

“ Mamma, Mrs. Talons is coming.” 

If Miss Bragg had announced the approach of an earth- 
quake, her mother could not have been more disconcerted. 

“Tell her that I am not at home,” she said, preparing 
to make a hasty exit through the back parlor door. 

“ Too late,” said the young lady laconically ; “ she has 
seen you.” 

“I would as soon see the old Nick! ” exclaimed Mrs. 
Bragg in great perturbation. “ Ellen, watch for your 
father, and take him around the back way, on any pretext 
you can think of, if he gets here before she leaves. Tell 
him John wants to see him in the garden, or anything.” 

“ What if he should see these things in the porch as he 
passes by?” 

“Tell him they were left here by mistake, or — or any 
thing,” said Mrs. Bragg in an agony. “ Keep him out of 
the parlor, at all costs — until she gets away.” 

The lady so enthusiastically welcomed had, by this 
time, gotten so near the house that the dialogue in which 
she was so honorably mentioned had to be discontinued. 

A moment later, she was ascending the porch steps, 
and Mrs. Bragg was descending them to welcome her. 


A WATCH-KEY. 


37 


“’So glad to see you, Sophie,” she said, leading the 
way into the house. “ My carpet and curtains have just 
gotten here,” she added, carelessly pointing to them in 
passing. “I haven’t had time to open them yet.” 

Mrs. Talons halted for a moment, in undisguised aston- 
ishment. 

They had really come, then — that carpet and curtains 
in which she had had so little faith, which she had unhesi- 
tatingly relegated to the companionship of the set of 
diamonds, the carriage and horses, the silver service, and 
all the many elegancies Mrs. Bragg was always “ going to 
get.” She was quite cowed for a moment, having come 
for the amiable purpose of inquiring after “that birthday 
present ; ” and here it was, sure enough. Lavinia Bragg 
had told the truth — for once. Mrs. Talons felt quite at 
a loss for something to say. 

“ I am very glad you came in this morning,” said Mrs. 
Bragg, taking a chair and offering her visitor one. “ I 
haven’t been out for several days,” she said, “and would 
like to hear all the news.” 

From which it may be seen that Mrs. Bragg herself 
could occasionally plant a sting. 

“Well, the latest news,” said Mrs. Talons, nowise 
abashed, “is the Mason-Clavering engagements — Tillet 
and Marian Everett, and Tunstall and Lydia Mason.” 

She paused here to see her bomb take effect. But Mrs. 
Bragg was as placid and imperturbable as ever — to out- 
ward seeming, that is ; inwardly, her heart sank like a 
plummet, but she didn’t intend to give Mrs. Talons the 
satisfaction of seeing it. 

“ That is the secret of her mysterious trip to the moun- 
tains,” that lady went on. “I suppose she wants to see 
a little of the world before settling down to married life.” 


38 


A WATCH-KEY. 


“ Tunstall Clavering is an excellent young man, a most 
excellent one,” said Mrs. Bragg, taking up the ball of 
conversation in her turn. “I always told Ellen so,” she 
added in a very confidential tone — atone that was intended 
to convey the idea that she, Mrs. Bragg, had used her 
influence with Miss Bragg in Tunstall Clavering’s behalf, 
but that that young lady had proved obdurate —had dis- 
carded the young gentleman, in short. 

There were people whom Mrs. Bragg would not have 
hesitated to have told outright that her daughter had had 
the option of being Mrs. Clavering, but she knew her 
woman a little too well to venture that far with Mrs. 
Talons ; as it was, she had said the same thing, in effect, 
but in a way that “ Sophie Talons couldn’t make anything 
of.” She was by no means certain, as yet, of the accuracy 
of that lady’s information, and it behooved her to be very 
particular. 

“ I sometimes think,” she said, pursuing the subject, 
“that Ellen will never marry. She is so very fastidious. 
One scarcely knows what to advise upon the subject, 
either. There are a great many risks, of course, but 
Henry and I are both great advocates of marriage. He 
often says to me : ‘ Dear, how could we two ever have 
gotten along without each other? Suppose we had never 
met ! ’ ” 

“That sounds so like him,” said Mrs. Talons unblush- 
ingly. “ I can imagine I hear him saying it now.” 

“ I often tell him,” responded Mrs. Bragg, oblivious of 
the satire, “ that he is really very absurd. We are get- 
ting too old for such love-making. I am afraid people 
will think us very silly. Ellen laughs at us often. She 
says we are worse than any young couple she knows of.” 


A WATCH-KEY. 


39 


“ Yes, I have no doubt you live in a perpetual honey- 
moon,” said Mrs. Talons. “ That is the general impres- 
sion. But when are you going to put down your carpet ? 
Is it brussels or velvet ? ” 

“ It is brussels,” said Mrs. Bragg, slowly opening and 
closing her fan. “ Henry preferred velvet, but I like 
brussels better. It is not so hard to sweep.” 

After a little further conversation the ladies separated, 
Mrs. Bragg speeding the departing guest with a great 
deal of alacrity. 

“ Thank heaven, she is gone ! ” she said to her daugh- 
ter, who came in the parlor just as Mrs. Talons had 
quitted it. “ Has your father come yet ? ” 

“ He is coming now. I came in to tell you.” 

A minute later, a small, sharp-featured, keen-eyed gen- 
tleman walked, with the step of a proprietor, into the 
house. 

“ What is all this ? ” he asked, eyeing with wonderment 
the packages upon the porch. 

For an instant, there was an ominous silence. 

Meanwhile, the gentleman deposited his hat upon the 
rack in the hall, and, joining his wife in the parlor, 
repeated the question. 

“ They are the carpet and curtains I ordered for the 
parlSr,” said Mrs. Bragg, who had nerved herself for the 
plunge. 

“ The carpet and curtains you ordered for the parlor! ” 

“ Yes,” said Mrs. Bragg, whose courage rose with the 
desperateness of the situation. “ I needed them terribly, 
and I have been economizing a year or more with a view 
of getting them. I didn’t consult you before ordering 
them, because — ” 

“ I presume you also ordered the funds with which to 


40 


A WATCH-KEY. 


pay for them, madam,"’ interrupted the husband with ter. 
rible sarcasm. 

“ No,” answered the much-enduring woman, “ I did 
not. You can pay for them, or not, as you like,” she 
continued, an ominous calm in her voice — “you who 
spend hundreds of dollars upon yourself and your boon 
companions. I have borne it all in silence,” she continued, 
the long suppressed passion in her flaming up suddenly, 
“until endurance has ceased to be a virtue. You have 
reached the length of your tether with me, Henry Bragg. 
I will leave your house to-morrow, finally and forever, 
if—” 

“ Lavinia! Have you taken leave of your senses ! ” 

“No; I have just arrived at a possession of them,” 
said the woman who had taken one pendulum bound 
from the self-restraint of years into the wildest license of 
speech and action. “ I have just arrived at a possession 
of them. Do you intend paying for these things?” she 
asked calmly. 

“ Yes,” the husband answered sullenly. (Your domes- 
tic tyrant is always a coward.) “ I will pay for your 
extravagancies as long as I have anything left to pay 
with.” 

And then this model husband and wife separated, the 
one going into the upper regions of the house, the other 
into the dining-room. 

Over-wrought! High-colored! A piece of cheap cari- 
cature ! Not a bit of it. Sir Critic, but a picture drawn 
from the life — one of those bits of glaring color some- 
times found on Nature’s canvas. 

The world is very much the same — especially the world 
of critics — that it was in the days of .^sop, when he 


A WATCH-KEY. 


41 


originated the fable of “ The Mountebank and the Coun- 
tryman,” which is as follows : 

* “A certain wealthy patrician, intending to treat the 
Roman people with some theatrical entertainment, pub- 
licly offered a reward to any one who would produce a 
novel spectacle. Incited by emulation, artists arrived 
from all parts to contest the prize, among whom a well- 
known witty mountebank gave out that he had a new 
kind of entertainment that had never yet been produced 
on any stage. This report being spread abroad, brought 
the whole city together. The theatre would hardly hold 
the number of spectators. And when the artist appeared 
alone upon the stage, without any apparatus, or any 
assistants, curiosity and suspense kept the spectators in 
profound silence. On a sudden, he thrust down his head 
into his bosom, and mimicked the squeaking of a young 
pig, so naturally, that the audience insisted upon it that 
he had one under his cloak, and ordered him to be 
searched ; which being done, and nothing appearing, they 
loaded him with the most extravagant applause. 

“A countryman among the audience, observing what 
passed — ‘ Oh ! ’ says he, ‘ I can do better than this ; ’ and 
immediately gave out that he would perform next day. 
Accordingly, on the morrow, a yet greater crowd was col- 
lected. Prepossessed, however, in favor of the mounte- 
bank, they came rather to laugh at the countryman than 
to pass a fair judgment on him. They both came out on 
the stage. The mountebank grunts away first, and calls 
forth the greatest clapping and applause. Then the 
countryman, pretending that he had concealed a little 
pig under his garments (and he had, in fact, really got 
one), pinched its ear till he made it squeak. The people 


♦Literally transcribed from .^^sop’s Fables. 


42 


A WATCH-KEY. 


cried out that toe mountebank had imitated the pig 
much more naturally, and hooted to the countryman to 
quit the stage, but he, to convict them to their face, pro- 
duced^ the real pig from his bosom. ‘And now, gentle- 
men, you may see,’ said he, ‘ what a pretty sort of judges 
you are.’ ” 

So be it known to all whom it may concern, that my 
pig is a real one, and, if it does not squeal naturally, the 
fault lies with Nature, not me. 

The pig in question — begging the lady’s pardon for the 
comparison — was rather an anomaly among pigs. It was 
a well-conditioned animal in the main, but had its idio- 
syncrasies. Who of us is without them ? In our idio- 
syncrasies lie the key-notes to our characters, and the 
solution of a great deal that is enigmatical in our con- 
duct. We all have an ideal self, to the likeness of which 
we attempt to fashion the veritable Ego. One man sets 
up for his model your “rough and plain-spoken fellow,*’ 
who “speaks his mind ” on all occasions; which, being 
interpreted, means a rough-shod riding over other people’s 
feelings, rights and sentiments, without regard to time, 
place or situation. He means nothing by it — is not act- 
uated by the malevolent motives one would naturally 
attribute to him. He is only carrying out his role. He 
is “ bluff and outspoken,” or nothing. Another man 
desires to be considered “an original.” It is the acme of 
his ambition to be set down as “ an eccentric fellow.” 
Notoriety is his god ; eccentricity is his study ; his dress, 
speech, manner, are all sui ge7ieris, and he likes you to 
tell him so. To pass him by without comment is the 
severest punishment you can inflict upon him. He would 
rather you overwhelmed him with invective. But the 
catalogue is endless. The great dramatist has very truly 


A WATCH-KEY. 


43 


Said, “All the world’s a stage, and all the meri aild women 
merely players.” It is amusing to a quiet observer to sit 
by and watch the little parts played out. Here is your 
tender-hearted, susceptible female who talks about her 
feelings all day long, and you have much ado to keep 
from hurting them. One would suppose they existed for 
the sole purpose of being hurt, their owner is “ so sensi- 
tive.” In striking contrast to her is her funny neighbor. 
She is the “liveliest thing you ever saw” — keeps you 
laughing always, or trying to, if your facial muscles don’t 
give out from the severe strain of holding them in a 
forced and unnatural position, which you have to do to 
keep in her good graces. Not to laugh at everything she 
says is an unpardonable offence. 

Now, Mrs. Bragg’s role — we have gotten back to her at 
last — was that of the irreproachable matron ; the serene, 
story-book wife and mother who was never out of tem- 
per; made home a paradise, and dwelt perpetually upon 
those lofty domestic altitudes^which less-favored mortals 
only contemplate through the medium of the novelist’s 
eye-glasses — which exist in the domains of Fiction, never 
in those of Fact. She had posed so long that the atti- 
tude had become natural to her, until she almost believed 
in the part she was playing; and she would have suffered 
crucifixion, any day, rather than to have appeared in any 
other role. Not a bad woman, by any means — a woman, 
on the contrary, with many good and commendable quali- 
ties, but a woman of inordinate ambition, and one who 
was, above all, wedded to a part. 


44 


A WATCH-KEY. 


CHAPTER V. 

An Indian-summer day, such a one as might have lain 
over Eden, when our exiled first parents turned their sin- 
bowed faces away from its beauty forever — so wonderfully 
lovely, so wonderfully sad. Who does not love just such 
a day, with its wealth of sorrowful beauty ? — forests robed 
in a royal shroud of blended crimson and gold ; far-off 
clouds floating dreamily in a luminous ether sea; low, 
plaintive wind-voices wandering up and down among the 
trees, and shrubs, and dying flowers ; faint, sweet, subtle 
odors exhaling softly from the hearts of withered roses ; 
and, over all, that soft, sad, tender haze, of no color, yet 
coloring all things, and shedding over earth and air and 
sky that spell of intangible sadness — that subtle, pene- 
trating melancholy which can only be felt, not described. 

A day it is for idleness, for dreamy contemplation, for 
aimless wanderings in the quiet woods, and, above all, for 
castle building. 

But the face which is looking out upon it from Mrs. 
Golding’s front window is past the age for castle build- 
ing, for it belongs to Mrs. Golding herself. She is 
intently absorbed in a letter she is reading, and her face 
wears a troubled expression. It is worth looking at, that 
face, in spite of all the sixty years which have left their 
impress upon it. A beautiful old woman is scarcely less 
lovely than a beautiful young one, and infinitely rarer, so 
little is the art of growing old gracefully understood in 
this lightning express age ; but Mrs. Golding has, in some 
way or other, discovered the secret. In the hey-day of 
her youth and beauty, she was never more loved and 


A WATCH-KEY. 


45 


admired than now, in her childless widowhood and the 
Indian summer of her years. Life’s spring and summer 
are long since over with her; the violets of its May-time 
and the roses of its prime are alike faded and gone ; the 
memory of their sweetness is all that remains to her, in 
her childless and widowed old age ; and yet, she is serene 
and beautiful still. Like some old picture she looks, with 
her crown of silver hair, and old-fashioned gold-rimmed 
spectacles, through which the kind blue eyes look out in 
benediction upon all the world. I love to dwell upon the 
sweet old face. If I were an artist, I would love to 
reproduce it on canvas, to linger with delighted pencil 
upon each curve and feature, and catch, if possible, the 
spirit of that benignant expression which can only radiate 
from a pure heart — from one at peace with itself and all 
the world. 

But there is a troubled expression upon it now, as Mrs. 
Golding looks up from the letter in her hand, and the 
door bell sends a peal through the house simultaneously. 

“ Mrs. Bragg,” the servant announced a moment later. 
“ She is in the parlor. Shall I ask her in here?” 

“Yes,” said Mrs. Golding, carefully folding the letter 
in her hand and laying it upon an adjacent table, “ ask 
her in here.” 

The two ladies exchanged greetings, upon Mrs. Bragg’s 
entrance, in a manner characteristic of them both. On 
the one hand, there was a simple, native dignity, the 
gentlewoman’s birthright ; on the other, an elaborate 
assumption of it, the result of long and careful practice. 
Mrs. Bragg had been trying, for years, to shape herself 
in Mrs. Golding’s mould — to appear what that lovely old 
gentlewoman really was. As well might some smartly- 
varnished deal table attempt to vie with the solid old 


46 


A Watch-key. 


mahogany board, round which generations have gathered, 
and upon which the scars and abrasions of time only 
serve to show the ingrain beauty of the wood. How 
impossible for it to be simulated ! Not all the paint and 
varnish in the universe can deceive us, for a moment. 
Pine is pine to the end of the chapter, however many 
superincumbent coats of varnish may, for a time, conceal 
the real wood. It cannot afford to be scratched. We 
know that all the time. 

“A letter from Lydia? ” said Mrs. Bragg interrogatively, 
recognizing the superscription of the envelope upon the 
table near her. “ How is she?” 

“ She is not exactly well, I think,” said Mrs. Golding 
hesitatingly. “ How is Ellen? Has she quite recovered 
from her neuralgia ? ” 

A more delicate-minded woman would have taken the 
hint and changed the subject of conversation. 

Not so Mrs. Bragg. She had come for the express 
business of informing herself upon certain matters, and 
she was not to be deterred by trifles. 

“ Ellen is quite well,” she answered, “and she has been 
looking for a letter from Lydia every day. They are 
inseparables, you know, and she thinks it a little strange 
that Lydia has not written to her.” 

“ She has hardly had time yet,” said Mrs. Golding. 
“What lovely weather we are having? It must be the 
Indian summer, I suppose, but it is rather earlier this 
year than usual.” 

“ Yes,” said Mrs. Bragg, “ it is rather early, and it 
doesn’t correspond with Wiggins’ predictions, either. 
He has been prognosticating a stormy autumn. ‘ Look 
out for wind and rain and storm,’ he says, ‘in October 
and November,’ but we haven’t had them as yet. I 


A WATCH-KEY. 


47 


wonder if they are having such weather as this in the 
mountains,” she continued, returning to the charge. 
“ Does Lydia say anything about it ? ” 

“ Nothing whatever,” said Mrs. Golding, and the pained 
expression upon the sweet old face would have turned 
aside the point of any less determined probe. 

Mrs. Bragg caught the expression, and there was 
“ something behind it,” she told herself. What that 
something was, she was more than ever determined to 
find out. 

‘‘ I suspect Lydia would be surprised,” she said, sound- 
ing boldly, “ if she could know of some of the reports in 
circulation about her. It is rumored,” said Mrs. Bragg, 
looking keenly at Mrs. Golding, “ that she and Tunstall 
Clavering are to be married this winter.” 

“ Gossips must have something to talk about, I sup- 
pose,” said Mrs. Golding coldly, but she did not say 
whether or not they were, in this instance, talking truth. 
“ How are your flowers ? Are they doing well this fall ? ” 

Even Mrs. Bragg saw that it was time to change the 
conversation. 

“ They are doing beautifully,” she said ; “ and that 
reminds me — Ellen has a lovely fuchsia she has been 
nursing months for you. She is going to send it to you 
on your birthday, she says, but you mustn’t let her know 
that I have told you.” 

“ She is very kind,” said Mrs. Golding. “ My flowers 
have not been doing so well this year. I made a great 
mistake, I think, in taking them in too soon. I am afraid 
I shall lose a great many of them this winter. They 
have not had the proper care this fall. I have been sick, 
and the boys have been away so much. Tibet takes 
almost the entire charge of the greenhouse when he is 


48 


A WATCH-KEY. 


here. It is a thing one can’t intrust the servants with, 
you know.” 

“No, indeed,” said Mrs. Bragg. “ Mrs. Arnot set her 
gardener to repotting her flowers last week, and he tore 
away all the roots.” 

“A great many of mine need repotting,” said Mrs. 
Golding, “ but I am really not able to attend to it, and 
the boys haven’t the time just now.” 

“ Ellen would just be delighted to help you, Mrs. 
Golding. She is passionately fond of flowers — takes the 
entire charge of mine. Any day you like, she will come 
down and help you with yours. I will tell her to come 
to-morrow, if you say so.” 

“ I am afraid that would be imposing upon good 
nature,” said Mrs. Golding, who had her own private 
reasons for not being over-desirous of Miss Bragg’s com- 
panionship and services, but she could not, in common 
courtesy, absolutely decline them. 

Nothing short of this would have thrown Mrs. Bragg 
off the track. It took a good deal to throw this lady off 
the track of her self interest, at any time, and she was 
doubly tenacious of it now. 

“ It will be no imposition at all,” she said, for once, 
truthfully, “ but a pure pleasure. I shall send her down 
in the morning.” 

After a few more commonplaces, the ladies separated. 

On her return home, Mrs. Bragg found quite a com- 
pany of young people assembled in her parlor. Miss 
Bragg was entertaining them with a much-embroidered 
account of Mr. Tunstall Clavering’s last visit, when her 
mother entered the room. 

“ Ellen,” said that lady, after the usual salutations to 
her callers, “ Mrs. Golding wants you to spend the day 


A WATCH-KEY. 


49 


with her to-morrow. Don’t make any other engagement 
for the day.” 

“ Certainly I won’t, mamma,” said Miss Bragg with 
alacrity. “ I always have such a lovely time whenever I 
go to Mrs. Golding’s,” she continued, turning to and 
addressing her young friends. “ She is so kind.” 

“ Mrs. Golding completely spoils you, Ellen,” said her 
mother, smiling graciously. 

But to return to Mrs. Golding. 

Immediately upon Mrs. Bragg’s departure, she had 
resumed the reading of the letter before alluded to. She 
was still deep in its perusal, when the door opened and 
Tillet Clavering entered. 

He seated himself beside her, and she, without a word 
of comment, placed the letter in his hands. 

He read it through with a gathering frown. “Lydia 
has no sort of right to annoy you in this way, Aunt 
Susan,” he said indignantly. “It is simply outrageous. 
She is the most headstrong girl I ever saw. When a 
woman can’t get along with her own mother, how can 
she expect to get along with anybody else? She flies 
right in the face of everybody’s advice, and then turns 
around and imposes all her disappointments and vexa- 
tions upon them — upon you, in particular; and I just 
wouldn’t bother myself with them, or her either, if I 
were in your place.” 

“ Lydia has behaved very ungratefully towards me,” 
said Mrs. Golding. “ There is no denying that ; but I 
am afraid she is in some more than ordinary trouble. 
She speaks, you see, of a desire to commit suicide.” 

“A desire to commit fiddlesticks !” said Tillet impa- 
tiently. “ Such stuff as that is simply disgusting. If 
Lydia Mason never dies till she kills herself, she will live 

3 


50 


A WATCH-KEY. 


to the age of Methuselah. Her head has been turned 
by the number of sensational novels she has read, and 
she is trying to imagine herself some sort of a heroine. 
I have no patience with her,” said the young man angrily, 
“and I think the best thing for you to do is to let her 
severely alone. She will come out of her sulks fast 
enough, when she finds nobody paying any attention to 
them.” 

“ Mrs. Bragg was here this morning,” said Mrs. Gold- 
ing, apparently irrelevantly. 

“Ah ! ” said Tillet, smiling. 

“ She says there is some sort of report in circulation 
about Lydia and Tunstall being engaged. Have you 
heard anything of it ? ” 

For answer the young man threw his head back and 
laughed heartily. 

“ Poor woman ! Hasn’t she abandoned that trail yet? 
Tunstall has given her the slip so often, I should think 
she would let him alone. But she seems bent on getting 
into the family.” 

“ I always thought it was you she was after, before you 
began paying attention to Marian,” said Mrs. Golding. 
“ One oughtn’t to say such uncharitable things, I sup- 
pose, but — ” 

“ One might as well tell the truth, Aunt Susan.” 

“And you think she has turned her attention to Tun- 
stall ? ” 

“ I know it,” said the young man laconically. “ That 
was her business here this morning. I’ll wager anything — 
to find out the true status of affairs.” 

“You don’t suppose there is anything between Tunstall 
and Lydia? ” 

“ No,- indeed. Lydia is not Tunstall’s style of woman 


A WATCH-KEY. 


51 


at all. As far as she is concerned, she would accept any 
man’s homage that was offered her. I never, knew a girl 
so greedy for admiration. She will take it from any 
source, and under any circumstances.” 

“ I know her mother has had a great deal of trouble 
with her,” said Mrs. Golding, “ and she will never be 
guided by my advice when she is here.” 

“ I say let her alone,” said the young man decisively, 
and then he turned with one of the impetuous move- 
ments natural to him, and laid his shapely hand upon the 
beautiful, silvery hair of the woman who had been a 
mother to him, in all but name. 

“ When will you stop worrying over other people’s 
troubles?” he said in a tone of blended indignation and 
affection. “ One would think you had never had any of 
your own, you are so anxious to appropriate other peo- 
ple’s. I wonder, sometimes, if you ever did have a purely 
personal and selfish wish or impulse in your life ! ” 

“A great many of them, my dear,” said the old lady, 
smiling affectionately. “ For instance, I want my boys to 
achieve distinction and to reflect it upon my old age. 
There is no limit to my vicarious ambition,” she added 
smiling. “ Old folks are compelled to live over their lives 
in the young ones. It is a form of selfishness, after all.” 

“ Discourse upon a subject that you know something 
about, auntie mine. I think a guardian ought to be 
appointed to look after yours and Miss Herbert’s per- 
sonal interests. You are the only two people I know of 
who are so busy promoting otlur people’s welfare that 
you have no time to attend to your own.” 

“ Marian is a very lovely woman,” said Mrs. Golding. 
“ I hope your Marian may inherit her character as well as 
her name.” 


52 


A WATCH-KEY. 


“ Her own character suits me sufficiently well,” said 
the young man with a lover’s arrogance. “ I wouldn’t 
have it different from what it is.” 

“ She is very beautiful,” said Mrs. Golding smiling. 
“You will be a handsome pair. I am anxious to see you 
married, Tillet. I am almost more impatient about it 
than you are. Old folks can’t afford to wait for anything. 
They have so little hold on the future.” 

“I am glad your mind runs with mine, auntie. Sup- 
pose you go around some time, and see if you can’t talk 
Mrs. Everett into letting us get married this winter ? Do 
you know that I don’t fancy she likes me much?” 

“What can she possibly see about you to </f.ylike?” 
said Mrs. Golding, bristling up at once in her boy’s 
defence. “ I don’t* know two young men, anywhere, who 
can compare with you and Tunstall in steadiness, business 
habits or general deportment.” 

“As seen through your partial glasses. Aunt Susan,” 
answered the young man smiling. “ But I don’t mean 
anything particular about Mrs. Everett. She is invari- 
ably courteous to me, but never cordial, I think. And 
that may be a fancy on my part, for she has never raised 
any objection to my suit. She only wants to put me off 
with an indefinite engagement — talks about Marian being 
so young; as if a man wanted an old wife,” he added, 
laughing. 

“ Yes, she is very young,” said Mrs. Golding, in a dreamy 
voice — “ very, very young. Her mother married young, 
too, and she has broken dreadfully. You will scarcely 
believe it, but she was once as beautiful as her daughter.” 

“ I can’t imagine anybody being quite as beautiful as 
Marian,” said Marian’s lover. “See here ” (producing 
from his pocket a small oval-shaped picture in a gilt-and- 


A WATCH-KEY. 


53 


velvet frame). She gave me this this morning. Could 
she be improved upon by Nature or Art?” 

“She is very, very lovely,” said Mrs. Golding, looking 
intently upon the pictured face, which was only less lovely 
than its original. 

“ No picture could do her justice,” said the young lover 
fondly — “could catch her varying expression. She com- 
pletely kills all other women. Ellen Bragg looks like a 
painted doll beside her. The most beautiful thing about 
Marian is her perfect naturalness, her —you are laughing 
at me,” he broke off suddenly, flushing and laughing 
himself. 

“You are very much in love,” said his aunt, smiling 
and returning him the picture. 

He took it from her hands and gazed long and intently 
upon it. It seemed to smile back upon him from its gilt- 
and velvet frame. He could almost fancy that the rosy 
lips moved. 

He pressed his own to them passionately. 

“ She shall never have a care,” he said, “ that I can 
avert from her.” 

“ I hope she loves you as well as you do her.” 

“ I think she does, or she would never have promised 
to marry me. She is not a woman to do that sort of 
thing for pastime, but she is very, very coy.” 

“ I am glad to hear you say so,” said Mrs. Golding 
approvingly. “ If I were a man, I would never respect a 
woman who met me half way.” 

“That is a very respectable distance. Aunt Susan,” 
said the young man laughing. “A great many of them 
go the whole way.” 

“ That sort of thing wasn’t tolerated in my day,” said 
the old lady with emphasis. Girls had to be wooed then. 


54 


A WATCH-KEY. 


before they were won. The idea of a girl running a man 
down, as some of them do now, as — ” 

“As Ellen Bragg does Tunstall, for instance,” said 
Tunstall’s brother, laughing. “ It is as good as a play to 
watch her and her mother maneuvering to get him within 
their range, and Tunstall maneuvering to keep out of it. 
It is a war of wits ; but they are two to one, and generally 
succeed in cornering him.” 

Clang! went the door-bell. 

“ Somebody is coming,” said Tillet, rising. “ I believe 
ril beat a retreat.” 


A WATCH-KEY. 


55 


CHAPTER VI. 

A level stretch of country road, winding, like a white 
ribbon, among pine-scented forests, smiling meadows, and 
broad stretches of cultivated fields, as carefully kept as a 
garden. A revelation they would be to eyes only accus- 
tomed to the rugged hills and unsmiling landscapes of 
what is known as the “ hill country,” wanting alike, as it 
is, in the grandeur of ‘mountain scenery and the beauty of 
the plains. And beautiful indeed they are, those plains, 
with no limit but the horizon, stretching afar and afar, 
until they are lost in the blue ether, which bends to meet 
them from the over-arching skies. What perspectives 
they afford ! — especially down those grand wooded ave- 
nues, for the construction of which Nature has a 
monopoly. What a sense of breadth they give one — of 
infinitude almost — those limitless plains! What superb 
distances the eye can travel upon them, unchecked by 
intervening barriers I and how home-sick one who has been 
reared among them gets when “ cribbed, cabined and con- 
fined ” among the barren hills, which .shut one in like a 
prison. Neither mountains nor plain are they, and, in 
all the range of her landscape effects. Nature presents 
us with nothing somberer. 

“ I do not like the hill-country,” said Tillet Clavering, 
who was holding in his mettled steed to keep pace with 
the soberer one upon which Marian Everett was ambling. 
The two were enjoying a horse-back ride together, than 
which nothing, I will say in passing, is more enjoyable, 
given a good horse and a good road. “I do not like the 
hill-country,” he said. “ It shuts one in so, and then 


56 


A WATCH-KEY. 


there is no compensation for it. Now, the mountains 
are different; they circumscribe the vision, too, but 
the grandeur of the scenery makes amends. One can 
afford to stop and look just at them ; but these little 
pigmy hills keep one from seeing anything else, and are 
themselves not worth looking at. I feel like I am in jail 
when I am among them. One breathes so much freer, 
upon these broad, open plains, and our sunset effects are 
much finer — finer, even, than among the mountains, I 
think.” 

“ What a thing it is to be a man ! ” said Miss Everett^ 
with a half-pouting expression upon her rosebud mouth. 
“What a thing it is to be a man, and go everywhere 
and see everything. Now, I have never seen anything ; 
neither mountains nor hills.” 

“You are Rasselas in the happy valley,” said Tillet, 
smiling. 

“ Rasselas tired of the happy valley, too, if my mem- 
ory serves me right,” said Marian, smiling in turn. “ But 
this country is really very beautiful, to one, at least, who 
has never seen anything else.” 

“ Would you like to see something else ? — to travel ?” 
said Tillet, who saw his opening to a subject very near his 
heart. 

“That depends,” said Miss Everett, lightly touching 
her horse. “What an elegant road for a canter! ” 

She, too, had seen the point towards which her lover 
was tending, and took this way of diverting him from it. 

But he was not so easily diverted. There was a good 
deal of quiet persistence about this young man, when he 
was really in earnest. 

“Wait awhile, Marian,” he said. “The canter will 
keep, and J want to talk with you a little,” 


A WATCH-KEY. 


57 


“ You have been doing that, to the best of my knowl- 
edge and belief, for the last hour or two,” said Miss 
Everett, still urging her horse forward. 

“ Marian, please listen to me one moment. You needn’t 
think I don’t understand you. You have been shying 
clear of this subject all the afternoon, and it is very much 
on my mind. Do listen to me.” 

Thus adjured. Miss Everett reined in her horse. 

“ I am all attention,” she said, mockingly. 

“Could you possibly be serious for just one minute? 
I will be exact about the time,” said Mr. Clavering, tak- 
ing out his watch ; “ won’t call on you for a second more 
than is in the bond.” 

“ I don’t mind trying, but I don’t believe I could,” said 
Marian laughingly. And what a laugh it was ! — as sweet, 
and clear, and musical as a bird’s carol. Such a laugh is 
necessarily contagious. 

The young man laughed too, their7merry voices blend- 
ing together until the quiet woods rang with the echo. 

Reader, have you ever seen children upon the beach at 
play, when the ocean was stormy and sullen ? Did you 
never feel afraid for them, as you watched the angry bil- 
lows in the distance, and saw them riding in nearer and 
yet nearer to land, approaching closer and yet closer to 
the innocent, unconscious little darlings at their play? 
And, if they were your own children, did you not gather 
them to your bosom, with a strange pang at your heart, 
thinking of those other and rougher billows of life, from 
which you could not protect them, which must, sooner or 
later, sweep over them in the coming years? Even so I 
watch these two — this boy and girl upon the beach of 
life at play. They are gathering shells, and I am listen- 
ing to the roar of the angry breakers in the distance. 


58 


A WATCH-KEY. 


Nearer, yet nearer, they ride ! Closer, yet closer, they 
come ! And the children, the children, they are still 
upon the beach at play! 

“Now that you have had your laugh out, I hope you 
will listen to me, Marian,” said Tillet, reining in his horse 
beside hers. 

She looked up at him roguishly from under her long 
lashes. 

“ Proceed, monsieur,” she said. 

“You know what it is that I want to say. I want you 
to marry me this winter. You promised to consider the 
matter.” 

“ It takes time to consider anything,” said Miss Everett. 
“ I didn’t dream that you would mention the matter again 
for a month or two at least.” 

“ But you see that I have mentioned it, and I would 
like you to consider the question right now. What good 
can we serve by waiting ? A man feels so unsettled under 
this sort of thing.” 

“ Under what sort of a thing? ” 

“You know very well what I mean, Marian. Don’t be 
unkind. If you loved me just half as well as I do you, 
you wouldn’t say me nay. Marian, do you love me ? I 
am hungry to hear you say just those three little words. 
You never have, you know.” 

Miss Everett’s horse just then felt a touch of the whip, 
to which he was very unaccustomed. He didn’t resent 
the indignity, however, for Mr. Clavering’s hand was upon 
his bridle rein and he had no alternative but to stand 
still. 

“Don’t stop in the road this way,” said Miss Everett 
uneasily. “ People will think we are crazy.” 

“ Let us go on, then,” said Tillet, glancing down the 


59 


A WATCH-KEY. 

road. “ But, Marian, just this once — I will never ask you 
again — say, ‘Tillet, I love you.’” 

But nothing seemed more impossible than for Miss 
Everett to pronounce this little formula. 

The bright vermilion floods inundate her flower-like 
face. 

“You are too absurd for anything,” she said. “I am 
determined to have that canter.” 

And have it they did, with the perfume-laden breeze 
blowing in their faces, and the golden autumn sunshine 
streaming over them and around. 

“ I don’t believe there is anything in the world so 
exhilarating as a brisk canter,” said Marian, at last, rein- 
ing in her horse, or allowing him to rein himself in, a 
disposition to do which he had evinced some distance 
back. 

But the ride didn’t seem to have the same exhilarating 
effect upon Mr. Clavering. He w.is unusually grave, for 
him. 

“ He is pouting,” thought Marian, “because I won’t do 
as he wants me.” 

“Tillet,” she said softly. 

The young man looked up with a pleased flush. It was 
the first time she had ever addressed him without his 
title. 

“What is it ?” he said eagerly, the great love he bore 
her shining in his eyes and quivering in his voice. “ What 
is it, Marian ? ” 

“Nothing — except, that maybe — if mamma says so — ” 

“You will marry me this winter?” he said eagerly. 

“Yes — I reckon — maybe.” 

“Are you trifling with me, Marian?” 

But Miss Everett was spared the necessity of a reply, 


6o 


A WATCH-KEY. 

for just at this juncture there was heard the sound of 
approaching wheels, and a moment later Tunstall Clav- 
ering and Miss Bragg loomed in sight, with the extremes 
of boredom and beatitude depicted upon their respec- 
tive countenances. 

“I thought so,” said Tillet, laughing. “I told Tun- 
stall that he was in for it before I left home this afternoon. 
Miss Bragg has been spending the day with Aunt Susan,” 
he added, by way of explanation to Marian. 

“ We have come to look for you,” said Miss Bragg, 
when they had approached near enough for conversation. 
“ Mrs. Golding and Mrs. Everett are both uneasy about 
you, Marian.” 

“Is nobody uneasy about me?” said Tillet. “ I con- 
sider myself very much slighted.” 

“You are too absurd, Mr. Clavering,” said Miss Bragg, 
shaking her finger at him. “ You are not subject to sore 
throat, like Marian, and her mother is afraid there is a 
storm blowing up.” 

“From where, pray? There hasn’t been a cloud as 
big as a man’s hand visible all day.” 

“ There is considerable wind, you must admit that. At 
all events, Mrs. Everett told me to tell Marian to come 
home. She was sitting on the porch, and called to us as 
we passed by.” 

“We must obey orders, I suppose,” said Tillet, turning 
his horse, “ but I vote for a separation. Either give us 
the start or take it yourselves,” he said, addressing his 
brother. “ I have no mind to swallow a peck of dust — 
don’t think it will be beneficial to Miss Everett’s throat.’ 

“ Go ahead, then,” said Tunstall. He had made up his 
mind to a Ute-d-tHe with Miss Bragg and was taking it 
resignedly. 


A Watch-Key. 


6i 


He was a very quiet young man — one of the kind one 
has to know a long time before knowing well. He was 
nothing like the general favorite his brother was — had 
neither his vivacity nor that “winning way” about him, 
which was Tillet Clavering’s passport wherever he went. 

The affection between these two brothers was some- 
thing phenomenal. When small boys they would fight 
for each other at the slightest provocation ; and although, 
as men, they made no extravagant parade of fraternal 
affection, yet it was generally understood by all who knew 
them that they were “ devoted brothers.” 

“ Did you ever see such an air of resignation as was on 
Tunstall’s face?” asked Tillet, when Marian and himself 
were once out of ear-shot of the other two. 

“ How conceited you men are ! ” said Marian indig- 
nantly. “ You all think yourselves irresistible. I daresay 
now that Ellen is as much bored as Tunstall seems to be.” 

“ She looked very much bored,” said Tillet dryly. “ It 
is a point of honor with you, though, never .to go back 
on your own sex. I ought -to have remembered that. 
There are very few women like you in that respect, I can 
tell you. They are mostly ready enough to pick each 
other to pieces.” 

“ In order, I suppose, to gain the favor of you lords of 
creation,” said Miss Everett sarcastically. 

“ It would be dangerous to say yes, I suppose ; but you 
must know that all women are not like you, Marian.” 

“Thanks! I am more than flattered by the pedestal 
upon which you place me.” 

“ Marian, does it not occur to you that this sort of 
thing might become monotonous after awhile ? ” said 
Tillet, showing temper for the first time. “ When a man 
loves a woman as I love you, he expects something 


62 


A WATCH-KEY. 


besides badinage from her. That is well enough once in 
a way, but as an exclusive diet it becomes rather unpala- 
table.” 

Miss Everett arched her brows surprisedly. 

“ In what am I so unhappy as to have offended ? ” 

“ I am very tired of this trifling, Marian. Love like 
mine craves some slight return.” 

“ Must I take lessons from Miss Bragg? ” said Marian, 
demurely. 

She was so irresistibly beautiful as she said this, that 
the man who loved her absolved her, then and there, 
from all sins of omission and commission. She might do 
or say what she pleased, but she was the one woman in 
the world for him. 

“ Have we quarreled ? ” she said, looking up into his 
face in the prettiest way imaginable. 

“ Who could quarrel with you ? ” 

“ It sounded very much to me as if you were a moment 
ago.” 

“You are incorrigible,” said the young man laughing- 
“ But a man couldn’t be angry with you if he tried.” 

They had entered Milledgeville by this time. Admiring 
eyes followed them as they rode down its principal street. 
What good gift of fortune was there which they did not 
represent? Youth, health, beauty, and a sufficiency of 
this world’s goods — they possessed them all. 

Poor Miss Craft, the village seamstress, returning home 
from a hard day’s labor, looked enviously, not to say bit- 
terly, at them as they passed her by. “ What a differ- 
ence,” she thought, “ in people’s lots in this world.” She 
had been hard at work all day, and looked forward to 
being so on the morrow. All the to-morrows of the 
future stretched before her an uninviting prospect of 


A WATCH-KEY. 


63 


severe and poorly-remunerated toil. And they were no 
better than she was, she thought. Why had God made 
this difference between them ! 

Curiously enough, a similar train of thought— only 
reversed in its conditions — was passing through Tillet 
Clavering’s brain. His attention had been attracted by 
the little poorly-dressed woman, as she trudged along the 
sidewalk with her basket of work upon her arm. She 
had often worked by the day at his aunt’s, and he had 
always felt sorry for her. How could people endure such 
lives? he thought. How could they go on living, day by 
day, with nothing to live for! His heart — a very tender, 
compassionate heart it was — was full of pity for the tired 
little woman, as she wended her way along the dusty 
sidewalk. A crowd of rude schoolboys met her at a 
corner of the street. One ruder than the rest — whether 
accidentally or intentionally, no one could tell — knocked 
the basket out of her hand. Its contents rolled in various 
directions, and the boys fled precipitately. 

With a bound, Tillet Clavering was off his horse. 

“ Those boys deserve a good thrashing. Miss Craft,” he 
said, picking up the bundles and restoring them to her, 
with the same chivalrous courtesy that he would have 
exhibited to the finest lady in Milledgeville. “I hope 
nothing is injured.” 

Miss Craft remembered the little incident long after- 
ward. I doubt if she will ever forget it. 


64 


A WATCH-KEY. 


CHAPTER VII. 

When the equestrians reached home, they found Mrs. 
Everett in a condition bordering on hysteria. 

“Why did you stay so late?” she said, almost impa- 
tiently, to Marian, as that young lady, flushed with the 
exercise of riding, and looking, in consequence, unusually 
beautiful, even for her, came slowly up the graveled 
walk-way to the house (she had parted with her lover at 
the gate). “ I have imagined everything. I don’t think 
I will ever consent to )'Our going horseback-riding any 
more. There is so much danger of accident. I had 
about made up my mind that one had befallen you this 
evening.” 

“You always would cross bridges before you got to 
them, mamma,” said Marian smiling. “ I wonder why. 
It does no good and gives you a deal of unhappiness. 
We had a delightful ride,” she added, turning for a 
moment and watching the receding figure of her lover as 
he rode slowly down the street. 

“ How handsome he is!” she thought, but she would 
not have told him so for the world. 

Mrs. Everett’s face flushed, as she noticed the direction 
of her daughter’s glance. All her maternal jealousy — 
and it has been seen she had a great deal of it — rose up 
inarms. “I see,” she said bitterly the new lover is 
everything ; the old mother nothing.” 

“You shall 7iot talk that way, mamma,” said Marian, 
placing an affectionate hand upon her mother’s lips. “ I 
will ‘not listen to it. Kiss me this instant,” she said 


A WATCH-KEY. 


65 


imperiously, “to take the taste of those naughty words 
out of your mouth.” 

Mrs. Everett obeyed silently, and Marian, gathering up 
her long riding-skirt, disappeared through the hall door. 

The mother remained sitting where her daughter had 
left her, in a low rocking chair upon the porch, with her 
hands clasped idly in her lap. The tension up to which 
her nerves had been strung all the afternoon was now 
relaxed and she felt as weak as an infant. The boisterous 
play of the children in the yard was a torture to her. 
1 here was nothing she so much desired as absolute quiet. 
Poor woman ! she might as well have coveted the crown 
jewels of England. Louder and yet louder rang the voices 
of the children in their play, until every nerve in her 
body was quivering. 

Do you know what it is to be nervous, reader ? A 
malady it is for which one gets little sympathy ; which is 
not considered worthy a place in the pathological cata- 
logue ; and yet it is one that has slain its thousands. 
Your stolid, phlegmatic man or woman looks upon ner- 
vousness as almost a crime. “There is no sense in it,” 
they think. “What is the use of allowing one’s self to 
be worried over every little trifle?” What is the use, 
indeed ! But there are men and women who will go on 
doing it to the day of doom. They are so organized that 
they cannot help it, any more than water can help run- 
ning down hill; it is their nature, and a most unfortunate 
nature it is too. 

Mrs. Everett was one of this unfortunate class. Nat- 
urally of a nervous organization, the circumstances of her 
life had been such as to aggravate the congenital ten- 
dency. That life for years had been a constant friction. 
What wonder that some of its best qualities, its finest 


66 


A WATCH-KEY. 


proportions, had been worn away by the prolonged attri- 
tion ! I ana not holding her up as a model, by any means. 
She was a most unreasonable woman in very many regards ; 
in none more so than in her passionate maternal affection. 
Her life had narrowed down to that one channel. She 
scarcelyexisted in any other capacity than that of a mother, 
and of all the children which had been born unto her, she 
had but the one who was in any sense a companion. The 
boys were all healthy, hearty little animals, with whom 
life was one protracted romp, with scarcely sufficient 
intervals for eating and sleeping. But Marian was differ- 
ent ; from early childhood she had been her mother’s 
companion. With all her sparkling vivacity there was 
also an exquisite gentleness about the girl. She petted 
her mother as no one else did. and the very thought of 
giving her up cut down into that mother’s heart like the 
sharp blade of a lancet into throbbing, quivering flesh. 
A very foolish woman — I am not gainsaying that — for bat- 
tling so with the inevitable ! Girls will marry ; it is natural 
and reasonable that they should ; and mothers should resign 
themselves to the dispensation. Just so there are wounds 
which require the surgeon’s knife ; it is the only proper 
treatment for them, but the pain of enduring it cannot 
be done away with by any sort of philosophy. 

“ I see Marian has gotten back without any broken 
bones,” said Mr. Everett, joining his wife upon the porch. 
“You do distress yourself very unnecessarily, Sibyl. I 
don’t see why you do it.” 

“I can’t help it,” said his wife sighing, 

“But you ought to help it. It does no earthly good, 
and makes yourself and everybody around you uncom- 
fortable. It is time enough to let trouble in when it 


A WATCH-KEY. 


67 


knocks at your door, but you spend the best part of your 
tinne hunting it up.” 

There was just a shade of testiness in Mr. Everett’s 
voice. His wife was a standing conundrum to him; he 
didn’t understand her at all. It was inexplicable to him 
how a woman, possessed as she was, in his estimation, of 
all the good things of this life — of health, and friends, 
and a competence — should voluntarily turn her face from 
them all and dwell upon imaginary evils; just as if a 
person before whom was spread a kingly banquet, should 
elect of his own free will and choice to dine upon bitter 
herbs and a dry crust. And I am not saying but that his 
is the better side of the argument. But facts do not 
always travel in a logical, straight line ; they are very 
erratic things — obedient 'to no known laws of science I 
and it is with facts I have to deal. I must follow their 
will-o’-the-wisp course wheresoever it may lead. 

“ I don’t know what you will do when Marian is mar- 
ried and gone,” said Mr. Everett, with that want of tact 
which was characteristic of him. How could he know 
that that was the constant refrain of his wife’s thoughts; 
the worn-out string upon the harp of her mind which was 
constantly vibrating! “I have no idea that Tillet Clav- 
ering will make a permanent home of Milledgeville. It 
is too small a place. He may stay here as long as Mrs. 
Golding lives, but he will eventually— where are you 
going, Sibyl?” he asked surprisedly, suddenly aware that 
he was addressing his remarks to the porch pillars. 

But Mrs. Everett was gone. She entered the parlor 
hastily, and threw herself with a passionate abandon- 
ment upon the cushions of the sofa in the corner. 

“What a great ado about nothing!” perhaps you 
think ; and it may be so ; I cannot tell. Mrs. Bragg 


68 


A WATCH-KEY. 


would certainly set it down as the climax of imbecility. 
What ! a woman whose daughter was about to marry the 
most eligible man in the county — a man whom other 
mothers had plotted and schemed to secure for their 
daughters— and that woman working herself into a trag- 
ical frame of mind over it ! Preposterous ! Incredible ! 
We are so differently constituted, we humans; see things 
from such different standpoints! There is a homely old 
adage which says, “ What is one man’s meat is another 
man’s poison;” and there is a world of truth in it. No 
doubt the horse, standing before his well-filled crib of corn 
and fodder, looks contemptuously upon the honey-bee 
flitting from flower to flower, and dependent for his pre- 
carious living upon such an uncertain larder; and the 
lioney-bee, in turn, has no digestive apparatus for assimi- 
lating the horse’s provender. He would rather have one 
drop of honey from the wild flower on the lea than tons 
of corn and fodder. There are some of us like the honey- 
bee. We die of inanition, with granaries of substantial 
food within our reach; but, alas! for us, it is r,ot adapted 
to our digestion. 

Mr. Everett remained sitting upon the porch, after his 
wife had left him, solacing himself with a cigar. As the 
blue wreaths of smoke curled up from his moustached 
lips, he gave himself up to reflection. There is some- 
thing about the weed — so say its devotees — very condu- 
cive to meditation. Mr. Everett’s was in this wise : 

Affairs with him had never been more prosperous. 
From a business point of view, they were all that could 
be desired. He was making money, and, what was bet- 
ter, saving it. His children were growing up around him 
happy, healthy and sufficiently dutiful ; his only daugh- 
ter was about to make a capital match, one that he 


A WATCH-KEY. 


69 


indorsed heartily ; out of the multitude of her admirers, 
she had chosen wisely and well. Mr. Everett had not 
been without parental solicitude for his daughter’s future. 
He had been very much afraid that she would “go 
through the woods and pick up a broken stick ; ” but that 
fear was now happily done away with. Her future was 
on a firm basis, and Mr. Everett regarded the matter as 
one for self-gratulation. 

The same array of facts, you see, upon which Mrs. 
Everett was looking through very different glasses! The 
difference all lies in the glasses. You can choose between 
the two — look through the father’s or the mother’s spec- 
tacles. 

A very sensible man was Mr. Everett — one who looked 
at things just as they were, without any bias of imagina- 
tion. He could deal well enough with facts, but fancies 
were unintelligible to him ; he had very little patience 
with them, to tell the truth. A man, he was, above the 
average in very many particulars- -in none more so than 
in a rigid honesty which measured his own and his neigh- 
bor’s life by the same rule of conduct, and could not be 
swerved to the right nor the left from the straight line of 
rectitude. A very old-fashioned sort of trait that is, I 
know, but Mr. Everett had never been educated up to 
the new style of moral nomenclature. He called embez- 
zlement, stealing; misrepresentation, lying, and used 
other unfashionable language, now expunged from the 
vocabulary of busine.ss. A man, he was, worthy of all 
respect — I have described him very ill if you think other- 
wise — but one of an altogether different make from the 
woman he had married. 

Looking up, he saw Miss Herbert coming through the 


70 


A WATCH-KEY. 


gate. He rose to meet her with a smile as she ascended 
the steps. 

“ I don’t know where Sibyl is,” he said, offering her a 
chair. “ She went in the house a moment ago. I dare 
say she will be out again presently.” 

“ I will go in and look for her,” said Miss Herbert, 
declining the chair. “ Just keep your seat.” 

She opened and closed several doors before finding the 
object of her search. 

“ What is it, Tibby ? ” she said, divining, with her quick 
instinct, that something was wrong when she had taken 
a seat beside her sister. 

“ Oh ! nothing, Marian — nothing,” answered Mrs. Ever- 
ett hopelessly, “ only the old struggle. It will finally kill 
me, I believe.” 

“ I am going to talk very plainly to you, dear,” said 
Miss Herbert, laying a gentle hand upon her sister’s burn- 
ing forehead. 

There was a very soothing quality about Miss Her- 
bert’s voice ; its very tones allayed emotion ; they had a 
quieting effect upon Mrs. Everett now. 

“O Marian, what should I do but for you!” she 
exclaimed, pressing that sister’s cool palm to her throbbing 
temples. “What should I do but for you 1 You are the 
greatest comfort I have in the world.” 

“ I am going to scold you a little,” said Miss Herbert, 
smiling, “and you needn’t try to disarm my judgment. 
You are my own twin sister,” she added more seriously, 
“and, next to our father and mother, I love you better than 
anything else in the world, but I must tell you the truth. 
You are acting very unwisely — not to say selfishly.” 

“O Marian! you don’t understand. You have never 
been a mother.” 


A WATCH-KEY. 


71 


“ No, I have never been a mother,” said Miss Herbert, 
still stroking the hair back softly from her sister’s fore- 
head ; “ but I can see very plainly that you are making 
your child very unhappy. She told me yesterday, with 
the tears in her eyes, that she was between two fires, you 
and Tillet. He is importunate for an early marriage, and 
you are set like a rock against it. You are forcing her to 
choose between you. Don’t do that, Sibyl. It is natural 
for girls to marry and to love their lovers. You wouldn’t 
have her to marry a man that she didn't love ? ” 

“ I would walk over burning plowshares to secure her 
happiness,” said Mrs. Everett passionately. “ She is the 
best child that ever a mother had. She has never in her 
whole life given me any trouble until now.” 

“ Then don’t give her any, dear. This marriage, so far 
as I can see, is a very eligible one. I don’t see a single 
objection that can be urged against it. Mr. Everett sees 
none.” 

“ No,” said Mrs. Everett, sighing. “ He is very well 
pleased with the match.” 

“ Then I would be, too, if I were in your place,” said 
Miss Herbert coaxingly. “ I would, at least, not say 
anything against it.” 

“ But this winter is entirely too soon for the marriage,” 
insisted Mrs. Everett. “ It is almost here now ; there is 
no time for preparation. When a man is going to be 
hung,” she said with a pitiful attempt at a smile, “he is 
given a little time to prepare for it. And when my heart 
is going to be torn out of my bosom — ” 

Here the tears choked further utterance, and Miss 
Herbert said soothingly: 

“ There is no such great hurry as that. They will 
wait until spring, I am sure,” 


72 


A WATCH-KEY. 


CHAPTER VIII. 

Mrs. Bragg’s parlor a second time, in all the glory of 
the new carpet and curtains. A vast improvement they 
make in the appearance of things ; the room scarcely 
looks like itself, bedecked in its rich upholstery. But it 
is an open question in Mrs. Bragg’s mind whether or not 
she would rather be without it. She has paid a heavy 
price for it — heavier, by far, than she had calculated upon. 
Mr. Bragg, it is true, has paid for it, but never since has 
he spoken a word to her except upon matters of business ; 
never since taken the slightest notice of her existence. 
Neither speaking nor spoken to, he has come and gone 
with that icy frigidity of demeanor which was harder for 
his wife to bear than any open censure could possibly have 
been. Mrs. Bragg is very sore at heart, as she sits in her 
handsome parlor and counts the cost of its elegance. 
The one weak spot in her composition is her love for this 
man, who has but poorly requited it in the days that are 
gone; who has looked upon and used her simply as a 
convenience all the days of their wedded life. She has 
known thi.s, in her heart, a long time ; but has put a bold 
face upon matters, and deceived, or attempted to deceive, 
herself as well as others. I have called her love for this 
man, for this unworthy husband, her one weak spot. I 
amend my language: It was her pre-eminent virtue, the 
one true and real feeling in the midst of much that was 
hollow and insincere. From the mire of much that was* 
unworthy, sprang this one pure lily of wifely devotion. 
It shone only the more brightly from contrast with the 
weeds which surrounded it. It is nothing of which to 


A WATCH-KEY. 


73 


speak lightly; I touch it with reverent hand. A hardy 
plant it had been, blooming on in defiance of neglect and 
exposure; feeding upon a barren soil, from which it had 
extracted every atom of nutriment, in the brave effort 
to live on and flourish. Hov/ much there is, after all, 
that is holy and beautiful in the most warped and dis- 
torted human nature ! In the image of God it was 
created, and traces of the Divine likeness are hard to 
obliterate wholly from its moral physiognomy. Some- 
where, in even the most debased heart, blooms some 
heavenly flower of conjugal, or paternal, or fraternal love, 
which redeems the waste around it from hopeless sterility. 
The All-Pitying Eye sees it, if no other; it is the secret 
of that Divine patience which characterized Christ upon 
earth. He, the Sinless One, saw in the vilest human 
heart, something that made it worth dying for; worth 
enduring the agony and shame of the Cross to redeem. 
But we think differently ; we draw our pharasaical robes 
around us, and shrink from contact with a brother mor- 
tal, less favored than ourselves in his moral proportions. 
We make careful inventory of the weeds in our neigh- 
bor’s garden, overlooking many of its flowers. The par- 
ticular flower of which we have been speaking — which 
ha^ bloomed so long and so bravely in the soil of Mrs. 
Bragg’s heart — was drooping upon its stem. 

Henry Bragg’s wife is face to face with the truth at 
last. She knows, now, that she is less than the dust 
beneath his feet to the man whom for years she has 
served so faithfully ; in the future, whatever pretence of 
mutual devotion she may parade before the world will be 
a pretence in reality. She can deceive herself no longer. 
The whole theory of her life has suddenly gone to pieces 
in her hands; like a child, whose toy castle of building- 

4 


74 


A WATCH-KEY. 


blocks has been overturned by some careless hand, she 
sits and surveys the ruins. We are children, all of us, at 
play with our building-blocks, to the last. They are our 
salvation, oftentimes, those same building blocks ; they 
render us oblivious of an outdoor Future of wind and 
storm, and an indoor Present of discomfort and gloom ; 
we are conscious of neither, as we sit, fitting one block 
upon another, and watching our mimic castles grow up 
beneath our hands into finest and fairest proportions. 
They are knocked down, time and again, for us by Chance 
or Destiny. We cry a while over the mishap, like the 
children we are, then wipe away our tears and go to build- 
ing again. Life would be insupportable otherwise. Who 
could live on without some theory of life; without the 
image of some possible good to be evolved for us out of 
the tears and trials, the efforts and pains of daily exist- 
ence ! No sooner does Fate knock over some cherished 
scheme, some darling life-plan of ours, than we imme- 
diately proceed to construct some other, indefatigable to 
the last. 

Mrs. Bragg’s mind has already leaped forward from the 
insupportable Present of domestic infelicity to a Future 
of fairer promise. If her conjugal world is a wreck 
there still remains to her the mother’s portion ; she will 
live over, in her child, the hopes and ambitions which 
have come to such poor fruition in her own life. Never 
had that child’s matrimonial prospects seemed of greater 
importance in her eyes ! 

Looking up, she saw her daughter standing before her. 

“Well, mamma, I have gotten back, and I have some 
news for you,” said that daughter, divesting herself of 
her hat and wraps. She had just returned from the ride 
with Tunstall Clavering, mentioned in a previous chapter. 


A WATCH-KEY. 


75 


“ What is it, Ellen ? ” said Mrs. Bragg, making room for 
the young lady on the sofa beside her. 

For answer. Miss Bragg drew from her pocket a letter 
and handed it to her mother. 

Mrs. Bragg took the letter, glanced at its superscrip- 
tion, then at its signature, and then turned an amazed 
face upon her daughter. 

“ What in the world are you doing with this, Ellen ? ” 
she asked in unqualified astonishment. 

“ You told me to find out what was in it, and I took 
the best way I knew of doing it,” said Miss Bragg 
promptly. 

“ Why, Ellen ! you know I didn’t tell you to take a 
letter that didn’t belong to you. I never dreamed of 
such a thing,” said Mrs. Bragg, with a face crimson to 
the rools of her hair. 

“What’s the use of splitting hairs so, mamma; of 
straining at gnats and swallowing camels? What’s the 
difference, pray, between taking the letter itself and 
taking its contents, which are the only things valuable 
about it, and which you told me to be sure and find out? 
The mere paper it is written on is nothing. Mrs. Gold- 
ing would rather I had that, any time, than a knowledge 
of its contents.” 

“ I didn’t mean for you to read the letter, Ellen,” said 
Mrs. Bragg in a disturbed tone of voice. 

“And what is the difference between doing that and 
pumping a knowledge of it out of the boys or the ser- 
vants, as you told me to do ? ” insisted Miss Bragg. 

But Mrs. Bragg evidently thought there was a great 
deal of difference. She would not have hesitated to 
have done the one, but she not only hesitated, but shrank 
with horror, from doing the other. A gulf seemed suddenly 


76 


A WATCH-KEY. 


to yawn at her feet. She was not without a conscience, 
this rather anomalous woman ; on the contrary, she always 
told herself, no less than others, that she was actuated, in 
every thing that she did, by the loftiest of motives. She 
was mentahy attudinizing always Everything she said 
and did was in character. Her mendacity was a habit of 
speech rather than any preconceived intention to deceive. 
She wore liabitual magnifying glasses, which deceived 
herself no less than other.-. The word liar would have 
been insupportable to her ears, so would the adjectives pry- 
ing and mischievous, as attached to her own name ; she 
would have substituted for them the more elegant terms 
of finesse and tact ; consequently, it was, that her daugh-. 
ter’s language was an inexpressible shock to her. To see 
in one’s ow.i child a copy of one’s own vices is, at all times* 
a painful thing ; but to see them as the direct result of 
one’s own training, is more painful still. We plant the 
germ, never thinking of the full-grown plan which may 
b^' evolved from the insignificant embryo. A merchant, 
for instance, teaches his son, by example, rather than 
precept, certain devious methods of conducting business — 
not downright rascality, but a sort of taking advantage of 
the weakness and ignorance of his customers. The idea 
of stealing never entered his head ; he would not do that 
for a thousand worlds — he knows where to draw the line, 
but the boy does not. Given the early impetus in the 
wrong direction, he goes the whole way ; started on the 
inclined plane of trickery’, he continues the moral descent 
until his name is written “ Defaulter ! ” 

Mrs. Bragg was almost stunned by the consequences 
which had been evolved from the germ of her training 
and advice. 


A WATCH-KEY. 


77 


“Aren’t you going to read the letter, mamma? ” asked 
her daughter. 

“ No, said Mrs. Bragg, blushing; “I would rather not. 
Since you have read it,” she said, after a minute, “ tell 
me what is in it.” 

“ She talks about killing herself for one thing; wishes 
she was dead, and so on. The whole letter is taken up 
with just such raving as that. What in the world can be 
the matter with her ? ” 

Mrs. Bragg’s face wore an expression of deepest medi- 
tation. What, indeed, could be the matter? What could 
such a letter mean ? 

“It very evidently means something,” she said to her 
daughter; “but, Ellen, never do you, under any circum- 
stances, do — such a thing again,” she added, unable, or 
unwilling, it seemed, to characterize in her own child con- 
duct which she would not have hesitated, in the case of any- 
body else, to have put down in very plain language. She 
had not yet gotten over the shock to her moral sensibili- 
ties which that conduct had occasioned, revealing, as it 
did to her, the ladder of moral descent from her own 
equivocal manoeuvers to the overt act of purloining a 
letter. She realized the fact, which it takes some of us a 
life time to realize, that character is an evolution always. 
No man is born a scoundrel. He may be born with 
strong congenital tendencies towards scoundrelism in 
general, but the individual scoundrel is elaborated always 
from certain natural processes, set in motion by his own 
volition, and he is evolved gradually. Nature’s processes 
are always slow. 

In the far-famed Mammoth Cave of Kentucky, there 
are said to be vast subterranean chambers, from whose 
natural ceiling depend myriads of stalactites, underneath 


78 


A WATCH-KEY. 


every one of which stands its inevitable stalagmite — a 
calcareous formation wrought out by the slow drippings 
of the overhanging stalactite. We have the similitude 
of this process of Nature in* the moral world — under the 
stalactite of habit grows up the stalagmite of character, 
enduring and inevitable. We, with gaze fixed upon the 
vault of our egoism, see the innocent stalactite only — 
one tiny drop at a time; the world, with its censorious 
eyes, looks down upon the stalagmite, out of which we 
have wrought for ourselves a monument more enduring 
than marble or brass, which will abide when we shall have 
passed away — the immutable monument of character. 

“Well, what are you going to do about it, mamma?” 
said Miss Bragg, who was not bothering herself with any 
troublesome questions in casuistry. 

She was a feminine duplicate of her father, this young 
lady. Nothing but the accident of sex prevented her 
from following in that father’s footsteps, which were 
those of a spendthrift and a gambler who exhibited, at 
all times, a sublime unconcern of every living being’s 
interest but his own. “ Well, what are you going to do 
about it, mamma?” she asked. 

“ Ellen, how would you like to visit your father’s rela- 
tives in Bath ? ” asked her mother, apparently irrelevantly. 
“ There is your cousin, Sarah Alcott, who lives in Oak- 
town — ” 

“ Mamma, you are a brick,” interrupted her daughter, 
indulging in the slang which was Mrs. Bragg’s pet aver- 
sion. “ Who but you would ever have thought of such 
a thing? Why, Lydia Mason is teaching in a few miles 
of Oaktown, and we can find out everything we want to 
know by going up there. Who but you would ever have 


A WATCH-KEY. 


79 


thought of it ? ” she again repeated ; “ but what will papa 
say ? ” 

“ I can manage that, I think,” said Mrs. Bragg, quietly. 
“ I will write to Sarah this evening,” she said, rising. 

“ Give my love to her,” said Ellen, “ if you are going 
to write now.” 

“Yes, I am going to write now,” said Mrs. Bragg, and 
she forthwith proceeded to do it. 

This is what she wrote, when she had taken her seat by 
the sitting-room window, portfolio in hand : 

“ Milledgeville, Va., November 2, 1884. 

''My Dear Sarah : I have been thinking of you a great 
deal lately — of the time when we were girls together, 
and saw so much more of each other than we have done 
since we have been married. 

“ It seems almost incredible that we have both grown 
daughters, and that those daughters are almost strangers 
to each other. Now this should not be; it is a dreadful 
thing for relatives to be weaned off from each other in 
this way. I was anxious to have you visit us this sum- 
mer, but was afraid for you to leave the mountains for 
our lower country until the malarial season was quite 
over, which never is until December. I am impatient to 
see you and talk over old times; so, if it is agreeable, will 
visit you shortly — next week, if convenient. Ellen (I 
shall bring her with me) sends her very best love to your- 
self and Mary. Mr. Bragg also desires to be remembered. 

“Your very affectionate cousin, 

“ Lavinia Bragg.” 

To this epistle the following answer was returned in a 
few days : 


8o 


A WATCH-KEY. 


“ Oaktown, Va., November 5, 1884. 

^'‘My Dear Lavinia : Your kind favor just received. I 
shall, of course, be very glad to see yourself and Ellen, if 
you can put up with an attic room. My house is full of 
boarders, and I have no other vacant. Mary sends love 
to Ellen, and says she will be glad to know her more 
intimately. 

“ We are having delightful weather in the mountains 
now, which causes our summer visitors to linger a little 
beyond the usual time. I have had a house full of them 
all summer. Hoping to see you soon, 

“ I am your affectionate cousin, 

“ Sarah Alcott.” 

The next western bound train which left Milledgeville 
after the arrival of this letter, carried Mrs. and Miss 
Bragg away with it. 

They set forth on their journey one sunshiny morning, 
leaving behind them, in the person of Mrs. Talons, a 
great deal of conjecture as to what such an unprece- 
dented trip could mean. 

“It means something, you maybe sure,” she said to 
Mrs. Arnott, who had expressed some little surprise at 
the season of the year Mrs. Bragg had chosen for her trip 
to the mountains. “ It means something, you may be 
sure. Lavinia Bragg has never visited her relatives in 
Bath in all the years I have been living in Milledgeville. 
They are not rich people,” she added, as if that were a 
sufficient explanation of the fact. “ Sarah Alcott is a 
widow and takes summer boarders. Oaktown is a sort of 
summer resort, you know.” 

“ It is a little late for visiting the mountains now, I 
should think,” said Mrs. Arnott. “ If I were in Mrs. 


A WATCH-KEY. 


8l 


Bragg’s place, I would not have gone later than October, 
anyway. It is cold there so early. By the way, I wonder 
what takes Tuntstall Clavering off there, too! I heard 
some one say that he left on the train yesterday for the 
mountains.” 

“You don’t say so!” said Mrs. Talons. “That, 
accounts for everything. I might have known it before. 
He is going to see Lydia Mason, and.y^^ is going to follow 
him up.” 




82 


A WATCH-KEY. 


CHAPTER IX. 

Our late civil war, called by various names, according 
to the sectionality of the speaker, or writer, was, whatever 
else it may have been, a revolution indeed. It changed 
the aspect, social, business and political, of an entire 
people ; revolutionized their manners, customs and domes- 
tic institutions; tore up by the roots, with its iconoclastic 
hand, their most cherished traditions, and left them 
stranded upon the shores of a new world, the very alpha- 
bet of whose institutions, social and political, they had 
to acquire. That was twenty years ago. The South of 
to-day is a new creature — the phcenix (to use the old 
hackneyed comparison) which has sprung from the ashes 
of the old desolation, and it is as little like the parent 
bird as can well be imagined. Is it, or is it not, an 
improvement ? That it has lost a great deal, this post- 
bellum South, cannot be denied ; that it has also gained a 
great deal is equally irrefutable. A nation is mirrored in 
the individual. Let us look at the representative South- 
ern man of to-day, as contrasted with his ancestor of a gen- 
eration back, the typical Southern gentleman of “ the old 
school.” That there is a painful “ falling off” we will be 
compelled to admit in very many particulars ; the son is 
no match for the father in culture or address ; he has 
retrograded socially and intellectually — is more of a busi- 
ness man and less of a gentleman, using the word in its 
most restricted sense ; but what he has lost in polish and 
elegance, he has more than gained in that goaheadative 
quality which is the foundation-stone of success ; he is 
almost a match now for his Yankee neighbor in shrewd- 


A WATCH-KEY. 


83 


ness and business activity ; he has learned that neighbor’s 
art of looking out for himself, and in so doing has lost 
somewhat of the generous philanthropy, the large-hearted 
public-spiritedness which characterized his chivalrous and 
patriotic ancestor. Shorn of the wealth and culture 
which have been the prerogatives of his race for genera- 
tions, he has been thrust out into the world naked and 
bare, and made to wrestle hand to hand with adversity 
for the food that he eats and the clothes that he wears ; 
he has fought his way up hill, inch by inch, and thereby 
gained a strength of arm and hardness of heart quite 
natural under the circumstances. The hardy out-door 
plant whose cradle has been the storm, and whose coverlet 
the snow, cannot be expected to exhale the same aromatic 
fragrance that is yielded by the tenderly-nurtured exotic. 
Its roots strike deeper down ; it is stronger, hardier, but 
neither so beautiful nor so fragrant. Who would expect 
it to be ? 

A change in the individual necessitates a change in his 
surroundings, as the one is an outgrowth of the other. 
This new man which our late revolution has evolved, has 
wrought out for himself a new country. Tht ante- be Hum 
South, with its hoary institutions, its venerable traditions, 
has passed away utterly; the very face of the country has 
changed; the great, far-reaching plantations of corn, and 
wheat, and cotton, have been divided and sub divided into 
small farms of a few acres each, more in accordance with 
the present system of labor; the great watering-places of 
the South have either closed their doors or abated their 
pretentions. The wealth which created them has passed 
away, but in their stead has sprung up, all over the coun- 
try — the mountain country, at least— little thriving towns 
which afford a less expensive nucleus for the traveling 


84 


A WATCH-KEY. 


public. Numberless “summer resorts” huve sprung up 
in this way, like mushrooms, in all the mountain country 
of the South. They meet the demand for an inexpensive 
health resort, which is a necessity of our climate. 

Among their number is Oaktown — the point of our 
travelers’ destination. Twenty years ago it was merely 
a village — only a little mountain hamlet of a hundred or 
more inhabitants; now it is a thriving town, with a popu- 
lation, white and colored, of nearly two thousand. Nearly 
everybody in the place takes “summer boarders.” Oak- 
town subsists upon its “summer patronage/' 

Among these numerous boarding-houses ranks that of 
the Widow Alcott conspicuously — the best in the place it 
is said to be; certainly it is the best patronized. Stran- 
gers are considered quite fortunate who “get in” at Mrs. 
Alcott’s. Her home is on front street, and has a very 
inviting yard of level sward and shrubbery. It is fur- 
nished after rather an old-style fashion, but very com- 
fortably, and its table-fare is something exceptional. 
Mrs. Alcott is a “ good feeder,” so say her guests and 
patrons. She is one of the many reduced Southern 
gentlewomen who have since the war taken one step from 
affluence and the parlor into poverty and the kitchen. 
From a youth, spent in the lap of luxury, she has come 
down to a middle age, dependent upon her own exertions. 

Upon our women, after all, have fallen the direst con- 
sequences of the war. Our men have gone forth, con- 
quering and to conquer, and made for themselves a new 
world (business, social and political) out of the ruins of 
the old. Although admixed with much of hardship, 
there is also much of excitement and interest attendant 
upon such a life. But our women — our brave, heroic 
Southern women — have been, and are, the martyrs of this 


A WATCH-KEY. 


85 


generation ; in many an instance they have kept the woH 
of poverty from the door with only the point of a needle — 
women, who were reared to an almost prodigal expendi- 
ture; in other, and numerous instances, they have bound 
themselves down to the serfdom of. boarding-house keep- 
ing, than which, under existing conditions of domestic 
labor, there is no bondage more galling. “A serv.int of 
servants ” she is, the Southern woman of to-day, vv’ho, 
for reasons pecuniary or otherwise, is reduced to the 
necessity of “ taking boarders.” The inefficiency of her 
servants — and they of this generation are all inefficient — 
she must complement with her individual exertions, to 
say nothing of being doomed to their perpetual compan- 
ionship. A life spent in the kitchen is a dreary outlook 
for a woman who was cradled in affluence. So thinks 
Mrs. Alcott, as she stands in her kitchen door and super- 
intends the preparation of the evening meal. Involun- 
tarily her mind goes back to the time when the kitchen 
was a terra incognita to her, and the mysteries of the 
culinary art were mysteries indeed. 

“ Dis beef is as tough as whitleather, Miss Sarah,” 
said the voice of the cook, breaking in upon her reflections. 

“ Beat it all the more, Nancy,” she answered wearily. 
“ I would like to have it as nice as may be. I am expect- 
ing my relatives, you know, this evening.” 

After this, silence fell. The cook betook herself to her 
beef, and Mrs, Alcott resumed her reflections. 

Mrs. Bragg’s letter had carried her curiously back to 
the days of her girlhood. That reference to “ old times ’ 
had stirred a re.sponsive chord in her bosom. It would 
indeed be a luxury to “talk them over; ” to be her own 
personal self once more, and not, always and forever, the 
landlady. 


86 


A WATCH-KEY. 


“Company in the parlor, Miss Sarah,” announced the 
small African whose business it was to “ ’tend de bell.” 

“ Ladies or gentlemen, William ? ” 

“ Ladies, ma’am.” 

Mrs. Alcott proceeded at once to the parlor, where,. to 
her great surprise, Mrs. Bragg and her daughter were 
seated. 

After a cordial greeting, she said : 

“ Why, how on earth did you ever get here, Lavinia? 

I expected you on the 8 o’clock train. You must have 
traveled all night.” 

“ We did travel all night,” said Mrs. Bragg ; “ I preferred 
that to lying over in Leaksville.” 

“You will want to go to your room, of course,” said 
Mrs. Alcott, leading the way. “ 1 am so sorry that I 
can’t give you a better one.” 

“ That is all right,” said Mrs. Bragg. “ The principal 
thing we want now,” she added, laughing, “ is soap and 
water. We are literally covered with dirt and cinders.” 

“Come down to the parlor as soon as you have made 
your toilets,” said Mrs. Alcott, excusing herself to her 
guests at the door of their room. “ I will tell Mary that 
you are here.” 

An hour later, mother and daughter emerged from the 
little attic room in resplendent toilets. Mrs. Bragg wore 
a heavy black silk. Miss Bragg a navy blue, and both 
ladies were aglitter with diamonds (?). A judge of stones 
might have pronounced them Australian pebbles, but 
judges of stones are rare, and so Mrs. Bragg’s and 
Ellen’s pebbles did duty for “ superb diamonds ” during 
their stay in Oaktown. Perhaps Mrs. Bragg intended 
something of the kind. At all events, she made quite a 
point of inquiring of Mrs. Alcott whether or not there 


A WATCH-KEY. 


87 


was any safe in the house in which they could deposit 
“ our valuables,” touching, as she spoke, the pin at her 
throat. 

“ I am sorry that I haven’t one,” said Mrs. Alcott, quite 
dazzled by her cousin’s magnificence, “ but I could get 
Mr. Terry to put them in his safe, if you would like it.” 

Mr. Terry was one of Mrs. Alcott’s “ table boarders,” 
who lodged at his own law-office next door, and was the 
owner of a burglar-proof safe. 

Mrs. Bragg would be very much obliged to Cousin 
Sarah if she would get the gentleman to take charge of 
their jewels, such as they were not wearing, in any 
absence of their’s, when they were out riding, for instance. 
This “Cousin Sarah” very obligingly did, and, in conse- 
quence of which little farce, and sundry airs and graces 
the two ladies gave themselves, it came in due time to be 
reported in Oaktown that the relatives of Mrs. Alcott 
who were visiting her were enormously wealthy ; wore 
thousands of dollars worth of diamonds, &c. 

Mrs. Alcott herself very innocently aided and abetted 
this report by retailing from time to time little things 
which Mrs. Bragg would “ let fall ” in the course of con- 
versation, and which would have justified anybody, not 
acquainted with the lady, in supposing her the possessor 
of enormous means. 

It was rather a surprise to Mrs. Alcott, but she took it 
all in good faith — was very glad that “ Cousin Henry” 
had been so successful in business. 

Mrs. Bragg’s description of her new parlor carpet and 
curtains to the cousins she knew would never see them, 
I leave to the reader’s imagination. She almost felt com- 
pensated for the price she had paid for them by the 
pleasure derived from their description. 


88 


A WATCH-KEY. 


Meantime, the ladies made several pleasant acquain- 
tances, among whom was, notably, a Mr. Theodore Clar- 
ence, a young gentleman of pleasing address who was 
stopping at Mrs. Alcott’s, and who showed a disposition 
to be very attentive to Miss Bragg — a disposition which 
that young lady, it is scarcely necessary to add, “ met 
half way,” or the whole way, as Tillet Clavering would 
have very likely termed it. 

The rain had kept them prisoners for several days. 
The roads being impassable, as was reported by all who 
had tried them, Mrs. Bragg had found it impossible to 
pay that visit to Lydia Mason, which had been the 
objective point of her journey to Oaktown. 

At last a day dawned fair enough for the purpose. 

“ I think you can try the roads today,” said Mrs. 
Alcott, at the breakfast-table, addressing herself to Mrs. 
Bragg. “ Shall I order a turn-out for you ? ” 

“ By all means,” said Mrs. Bragg, her countenance 
lighting up wonderfully. “ I am so anxious to see some- 
thing of the country, and, then, I would like to see a 
friend of Ellen’s who is teaching near here. Possibly 
you may know her. Her name is Lydia Mason, and she 
is living at Mrs. Delany’s.” 

As it chanced, however, Mrs. Alcott did not know the 
young lady. She knew Mrs. Delany slightly, but was 
not acquainted with her governess. 

After breakfast the two ladies set forth. The day was 
a matchless one; the sky was deep-blue overhead, but 
draped near the horizon line with soft, white, fleecy 
clouds ; the air was clear as crystal, save on the misty 
mountain tops, which wore their usual blue veil ; the 
vari-colored foliage, which lay like a royal mantle over 
the shoulders of the hill-sides, was “ a thing of beauty,” 


A WATCH-KEY. 


89 


if not “ a joy forever.” An artist would have revelled in 
the gorgeous tints, which he would yet have been power- 
less to reproduce on canvas. There are colors beyond 
him, just as there are thoughts beyond the writer, and 
notes beyond the musician. 

Do colors fail the painter, and notes the musician, as 
language does the writer? Does the one stand power- 
less before his easel to do more than embody a feeble 
reflection of the glowing image in his brain? Must a 
thousand exquisite tints of the mind-picture go forever 
unexpressed for lack of a medium? And the other — the 
musician — are his sweetest and noblest conceptions, 

“ Like perfumes on the wind, 

Which none may stay or bind ? ” 

Is his life spent in a vain grasping after and falling 
short of his ideal? — in a perpetual mental fever and-ague 
of alternate hope and despair, until, in moments of des- 
peration, he is almost tempted into casting away his 
birthright of genius ; into questioning the very genuine- 
ness of its existence? God pity him, if it be so! God 
pity the pain that he, and they who have felt it, alone can 
know — the bitter pain, the life-long striving, for which, 
alas! there seems no cure on earth, for fruition is not of 
time. When the veil of the flesh shall have been rent in 
twain — and not before — shall we stand face to face with 
PERFECTION. Surely, we shall behold it then! Surely, 
these feverish aspirations then 

“ .Shall grasp their full desire, 

And this unsettled fire 

Burn calmly, brightly, in immortal air,” 

But I am wandering far afield. 

Meantime, the stylish turn-out in which Mrs. Bragg and 


90 


A WATCH-KEY. 


her daughter are seated is wending its way up a very 
steep hill-side, so steep that it has to be ascended 
circuitously. 

The driver calls their attention to the fact. 

“The road winds round and round this hill for ever so 
many miles,” he said. “You can see the road we’ve just 
come below us now, and we’ve got to go round this very 
hill several more times before we get to the rop. Here’s 
the place,” he said, stopping the horses, “ where strangers 
mostly stops and looks at the view. Some of ’em brings 
these ere spy-glasses.” 

“Did you bring ours, mamma?” said Ellen. 

“ Yes,” said Mrs. Bragg, producing a pair of field-glasses 
from the outside pocket of her traveling-satchel. “ I 
came very near forgetting them, though.” 

“ It would have been unfortunate if you had.” 

“You may look first,” said Mrs. Bragg, handing her 
daughter the glasses. 

Miss Bragg adjusted them several times before getting 
the correct focus. “ I have got it right at last,” she said, 
leaning back against the cushions of the phaeton and 
taking in the view leisurely. 

Suddenly she sprang upright. 

“ Mamma ! Look quick ! ” she said, handing her 
mother the glasses and pointing with her finger towards 
a something on the summit of the hill, which at that dis- 
tance looked to the naked eye like a small bush with two 
children standing under it. 

Mrs. Bragg looked in the direction indicated, and she, 
too, started, then dropped the glasses and looked at her 
daughter. 

“ It is Lydia,” said Miss Bragg, answering the look. 


A WATCH-KEY. 


91 


“The glasses bring out her features perfectly; but who 
is the man ? Let me look again.” 

We will look with her. 

The distant bush and the two children, brought near by 
the powerful magnifying lens, turn out to be a large tree 
and a man and woman. They seem near enough, seen 
through the instrument, for Miss Bragg to put forth her 
hand and touch. The woman is certainly Lydia Mason, 
but the man’s face is averted. Only the back of his head 
can be seen. 

“ I wish he would turn his head,” said Ellen impatiently. 
“ I am dying to see his face. They seem in very animated 
discussion. Look again, quick ! ” she said, excitedly, 
placing the glasses in her mother’s hand. 

Mrs. Bragg raised them to her eyes to see Lydia Mason 
kneeling in an attitude of passionate entreaty, with both 
hands outstretched towards the man, whose face remained 
still averted. 

Nothing, of course, could be heard. 

The scene was a vivid pantomime. 

“ He has turned away and left her,’’ said Mrs. Bragg 
presently, “and I haven’t been able to see his face yet.” 

“ I guess we’ll go on, now,” said the driver, touching 
his horses. 

Mrs. Bragg scarcely heard him, so lost was she in 
speculation. 

“ Who could it be! What could it mean ! ” 

After a few more laborious circuits of the hill, they 
attained its summit. 

“ Yonder is Mrs. Delany's,” said the driver, pointing 
towards a large white house embosomed in trees. “Shall 
we go right on, or will you stop a bit here and look 
round ? ” 


92 


A WATCH-KEY. 


“ Good morning, ladies ! ” said a gentleman, emerging 
from the shelter of a spreading horse chestnut tree, and 
coming up to the vehicle in which the two ladies were 
seated. 

“ Goodness alive ! If it isn’t Mr. Clavering! ” said Miss 
Bragg in tones of the liveliest surprise. “ How did you 
get here, and when ? ” she asked, extending her hand and 
bestowing upon her mother, the while, a look which com- 
prised whole volumes of meaning. 

Mrs. Bragg telegraphed back a reply in kind, then 
extended her own hand to the young man, who said, as 
he shook it courteously : 

‘‘ I have been in Oaktown several days, but have been 
weather-bound. When did you get here?” 

“ We have been here several days also,” answered Mrs. 
Bragg, laughing, “and have- been weather-bound, too. I 
hadn’t the least idea that you were here,” she added, per- 
fectly truthfully, Mrs. Talons to the contrary notwith- 
standing. “ We are going up to see Lydia. Have you 
seen her yet ? ” 

The young man’s face lowered instantly. 

“ Yes, I have seen her,” he said, almost curtly, then 
raised his hat in adieu. 

A moment later he had vaulted upon a horse which 
neither of the ladies had before observed, but which had 
been fastened to a tree near by. 

In an instant he was out of sight. 

“ Let us go on to Mrs. Delany’s,” said Mrs. Bragg, 
addressing the driver. 

“ Well ! ” said Ellen, looking significantly at her mother. 

But Mrs. Bragg’s face was impassive. 


A WATCH-KEY. 


93 


CHAPTER X. 

On their arrival at Mrs. Delany’s, the two ladies were 
invited into the parlor by a trim-looking maid, who told 
them that Mrs. Delany was not at home, was out spend- 
ing the day, and that Miss Mason had “ gone out on the 
hill for a walk,” and hadn’t got back yet. 

“ We will wait for her,” said Mrs. Bragg, taking a book 
from the centre-table, by way of passing the time. 

Miss Bragg sauntered to the piano, which stood invit- 
ingly open, and strummed “ Home, Sweet Home,” upon 
the ivory keys in an absent sort of way. 

Neither of the ladies had come provided with visiting 
cards. Neither had they announced their names to the 
servant who admitted them. 

Whether or not this omission was intentional, it is 
impossible to say. 

They had been seated only a short time, when the door 
opened and Lydia Mason entered. 

She stopped midway the room with a gesture of unmis- 
takable surprise. 

“ You ! ” she faltered, in her astonishment and agita- 
tion, forgetting the usual salutations; “I hadn’t an 
idea — ” 

“ Of seeing us,” supplemented Ellen, coming forward 
and kissing her. “ I suppose not. We have run up here 
for a few days to see Cousin Sarah Alcott.” 

“And couldn’t think of going away without first seeing 
you,” said Mrs. Bragg, going through the osculatory 
ceremony in her turn. 

Then the trio seated themselves and a lively conversa- 


94 


A WATCH-KEY. 


tion ensued — lively on the part of Mrs. and Miss Bragg, 
that is. Lydia Mason was evidently distraught and ill at 
ease, although she kept the conversational ball rolling by 
numerous inquiries in regard to Milledgeville friends and 
occurrences, all of which the mother and daughter 
answered in detail. At last the former made a motion of 
departure. 

“ It is time we were going now, Ellen,” she said, rising 
from her chair. “ I hate to tear you and Lydia apart, 
but she must come and see us at Cousin Sarah’s.” 

“ Oh ! yes,” said Ellen, gushingly. “I shall look for 
you every day now until you come.” 

Then the two ladies made their adieux, and were soon 
en route for Oaktown. 

“ Haven’t you an engagement to ride with Mr. Clarence 
this evening ? ” said Mrs. Bragg to her daughter, as soon 
as they were seated in the carriage. 

“ I have,” said Ellen triumphantly, “ and he is a heap 
nicer than Tunstall Clavering, I think. Somehow, he 
always did make me feel as if he were laughing at me.” 

“The laugh may be turned before long — who knows! ” 
said Mrs. Bragg, oracularly. 

Then mother and daughter took their seats in the 
phaeton, and were soon upon the high-road to Oaktown. 

The day, as has before been said, was a perfect one — 
one of those days when a lover of Nature finds enjoy- 
ment enough in the mere fact of existence ; when earth 
and air and sky seem to join together in a trinity of uni- 
versal benediction. 

But a trio less capable of appreciating this largesse of 
Nature could scarcely have been convened from the four 
corners of the globe. 


A WATCH-KEY. 


95 


Mrs. Bragg, her daughter and their driver were, in equal 
degree, oblivious of the charm of the hour. 

How is it that your mountaineer, accustomed from 
infancy to the grandeur and sublimity of mountain 
scenery, is yet the most stolid and unimpressionable 
being upon earth ? He looks with an air of good- 
humored toleration upon the silly people who “ stand 
staring at rocks and dirt and things, as if they had never 
seen any before.” What they do it for, passes his com- 
prehension. But it is their business, and not his, and if 
they choose to pay him for carting them around to do it, 
he is very willing. And there are people who have 
enjoyed opportunities of culture, who are, strange to say, 
as impervious to the influences of Nature as the unlet- 
tered moutaineer. 

Poor earth-bound spirits ! Do they ever feel the 
weight of the clods upon them ? Does there ever enter 
into their imaginings a thought of the great world of 
sense and feeling from which they are shut out forever — 
from which they are debarred, from their cradle, as the 
blind man is from sunlight and the deaf-mute from music ? 
Do they ever yearn for the sense that is not, as the phys- 
ically blind and deaf are sometimes said to do ? 

We may not tell. Nature abounds in compensations. 
She gives the oyster his impenetrable shell, by way of 
atonement for his imprisoned life; and the human souls 
she has encased in such close walls of stolidity and obtuse- 
ness, she compensates by a protecting rampart of iron 
nerves and adamantine sensibilities. Who has not some- 
times yearned for such a bulwark of protection from the 
outside world ! Who has not envied the oyster his shell, 
at times ! 


96 


A WATCH-KEY. 


After all, the balance is nearer even than we sometimes 
imagine. 

“ Here we are,” said the driver, pulling up his horses in 
front of Mrs. Alcott’s residence. 

Mr. Clarence was standing upon the porch, and gallantly 
came forward to assist the ladies in alighting. 

“ Remember our ride this evening,” he said, pressing 
Miss Bragg’s hand as she sprang from the carriage. 

Miss Bragg was quite accustomed to having her hand 
pressed. The majority of her male acquaintances did so 
in a very early stage of their inevitable flirtation. She 
was one of the women that men cannot help flirting with. 
She challenged them so openly. 

On the present occasion she giggled. Giggling was the 
standing chorus of all her social performances. 

“ I am not likely to forget,” she said, following her 
mother into the house. 

“ I say, Clarence, you seem to be smitten.” 

This remark was made by a fellow-lodger of young 
Clarence, who chanced to be standing upon the porch. 

“ I wouldn’t mind going in for her myself,” he con- 
tinued, banteringly, “ if you hadn’t gotten the start of 
me. They say she’s got the stamps in abundance, and I 
guess it’s so. The old lady dresses like the Queen of 
Sheba.” 

The comparison was not an inapt one. 

Mrs. Bragg looked imposing enough to have person- 
ated the Queen of Sheba, or anybody else, as she sailed 
majestically down stairs to dinner, in her lustrous black 
silk and glittering diamonds (?). 

After dinner. Miss Bragg and Mr. Clarence set forth on 
their ride, and Mrs. Bragg sought Mrs. Alcott’s private 
apartments. 


A WATCH-KEY. 


97 


“ I have dropped in for a little chat with you, Sarah,” 
she said, subsiding into a convenient easy-chair. 

“ I am glad you have come in, Lavinia,” said Mrs. 
Alcott, cordially. “lam really sorry that I have been 
able to pay you so little attention since you have been 
here.” 

“Oh! I understand all that. Your boarders monopo- 
lize you to a certain extent necessarily. We will make 
up for lost time this evening.” 

“ Miss Sarah, de man’s here wid dem chickens,” said 
the cook, putting her head in at the door. 

Mrs. Alcott sighed audibly. 

“ Take charge of them, Sooky, for once, without me,” 
she said wearily; then, turning to her guest : “Oh ! my 
dear, you don’t know anything about trouble until you 
essay taking boarders. If there was anything else in the 
world I could do, I would stop it. One’s privacy is 
utterly destroyed. Some people seem to think, too, 
because they pay for their board, that they are licensed 
to be as disagreeable as they please ; that one belongs to 
them, mind, soul and body.” 

“ Have you good servants?” said Mrs. Bragg, leaning 
back luxuriously against the cushions of her chair. “ That 
is half the battle.” 

“As good as anybody else, I suppose,” answered Mrs. 
Alcott, in the tired tone which had become habitual with 
her. “ There are none good these days, you know.” 

“ Well, I have been very fortunate in the matter of 
servants ; have always succeeded in getting excellent 
ones. I am very methodical in my distribution of the 
work. My cook and chamber-maid know exactly what 
their duties are. My butler understands his, and there is 
no colliding, you see.” 

5 


98 


A WATCH-KEY. 


“ I can’t afford a butler,” said Mrs. Alcott. “ Trained 
men-servants are so expensive.” 

Mrs. Bragg neglected to explain that her trained man- 
servant (the “ butler,” so grandly alluded to) consisted of 
a very /^//trained farm-hand, sometimes, on very great 
occasions, called in from the plantation to wait on the 
table. Her chamber-maid was also a very apocryphal 
personage — existed during company seasons only, and 
was generally hired by the day. Her cook was the only 
real character in the drama, and she was the furthest in 
the world from a trained hand. 

But it does some people as much good to “ make- 
believe ” as to really possess. They have a mental diges- 
tion adapted to the assimilation of imaginary food. Mrs. 
Bragg managed to keep in very good condition on her 
aerial diet. She looked the personification of compla- 
cency now, as she gracefully swayed to and fro in her 
chair and toyed with the charms on her watch chain. 

“One of the worst things about taking boarders, I 
should think,” she said, after a pause, “would be the 
danger of being imposed upon. One never knows any- 
thing about strangers, and yet, if they are genteel-look- 
ing, one can’t turn them away. Now, I suppose you 
know nothing whatever about your boarders?” (this 
interrogatively). 

“ Some of them are strangers to me, and some not,” 
said Mrs. Alcott. 

“ You have several young men here, I see.” 

“Yes; as a rule, I prefer men boarders to women. They 
give less trouble; have fewer whims to consult — young 
men especially.” 

“That Mr. Clarence seems to be a very pleasant young 
man. Do you know anything about him ?” 


A WATCH-KEY. 


99 


“ Not about him personally," said Mrs. Alcott, “but I 
know all about his family. They are the nicest people in 
Hanover.” 

“ People of any means ? ” 

“ They were very wealthy before the war, and are com- 
paratively so now, I think. This yomig man seems to 
have plenty of money.” 

“ I am very particular about Ellen’s forming new 
acquaintances, especially with gentlemen,” said Mrs. 
Bragg. “This Mr. Clarence has shown a disposition 
to be very attentive to her, and I didn’t know — ” 

“Oh ! there is no trouble about that,” said Mrs. Alcott. 
“ I know that his family is all right, and he seems to be a 
very exemplary young man himself.” 

“You say his people have considerable means?” 

“They used to have, and, since I have come to think 
of it, I have heard that this young man has ‘ expecta- 
tions ’ of some sort from a wealthy relative.” 

“ ‘ Expectations’ sometimes don’t amount to much.” 

“And sometimes, again, they do. There is a whim- 
sical old uncle in this case, a great invalid and very 
wealthy, and this boy is his only heir. I heard Mrs. 
Abernathy talking about it when she was up here last 
summer. She is from Hanover, and knows all about the 
family. You are not going?” she added, as Mrs. Bragg 
arose from her chair with a motion of departure. 

“Yes, I have to write to Henry this evening. He is 
so exacting about letters.” 

“ Remember me to him most kindly,” said Mrs. Alcott, 
“ and tell him that I would be glad to see him, too, in 
Oaktown.” 

“Thanks! He would be delighted to come, I know, 
but he is such a slave to business.” 


100 


A WATCH-KEY. 


Mr. Bragg’s business, for years, had been to spend, as 
fast as it could be collected, and sometimes a little faster, 
the proceeds of the one little plantation upon which the 
family depended for support. This, varied by operations 
at the gaming-table, constituted his business. 


A WATCH-KEY. 


lOI 


CHAPTER XL 

“ Mamma, you will have to come here and settle a 
point of dispute between Mr. Clarence and myself,” said 
Miss Bragg to her mother, who chanced to be crossing 
the hall when that young lady and gentleman returned 
from their drive. 

“You are quite capable of doing your own quarreling, 
I think,” answered Mrs. Bragg, but she followed them 
into the parlor nevertheless. 

“ We have been fighting over the merits of our respect- 
ive States,” said Miss Bragg, pausing a moment to 
explain matters. “ He is a full-blooded Virginian, and I 
am half Tar-heel, as I told him. You may take up the 
cudgel in my place, mamma, while I go to take off my 
wraps.” 

“We have a great many relatives in North Carolina,” 
said Mrs. Bragg, graciously addressing Mr. Clarence, when 
that young gentleman and herself were seated yis-h-vis 
in the parlor, “ and Ellen is very fond of them. She 
prides herself on her admixture of Tar-heel blood. We 
have property interests, too, in North Carolina,” added 
the lady, adjusting the chain bracelet at her wrist, “and 
that is another bond of union.” 

“ The property interests ” in question consisted of one- 
sixth interest in a dilapidated toll-bridge, which realized 
the Braggs about twenty-five dollars a year. 

Mr. Clarence inferred from Mrs. Bragg’s manner that 
they comprehended about one-third of the State. 

“ You, I believe, are from Hanover County, Mr. Clar- 
ence ? ” 


102 


A WATCH-KEY. 


“Yes, madam ; that is my birthplace, but I have been 
living rather a cosmopolitan life for the last year or 
more.” 

“Your parents are living, are they not ?” 

“ No, madam. My nearest living relative is an uncle.” 

“Ah ! indeed. You make your home with him, I sup- 
pose. I suspect you think I am very inquisitive, but — ” 

“Not at all, madam. I make my home with nobody 
in particular — am a sort of waif and stray at present. 
My uncle is very infirm and has no special habitat — spends 
his time at different health-resorts ; his summers at the 
springs, and his winters in Florida. I occasionally accom- 
pany him on his tours.” 

“ So sad — ^^to be such an invalid. We who are in the 
enjoyment of health never thoroughly appreciate the 
blessing.” 

“ I suppose not. We generally take it as a matter of 
course. I can’t see what pleasure life can be to a man 
like uncle, and yet he clings to it as much as the rest of 
us.” 

“ The love of life is a natural instinct,” said Mrs. Bragg, 
in the tone of one who enunciates an entirely new and 
original idea. “ How old is your uncle? ” 

“ I don’t know exactly. He is very sensitive about his 
age. He is somewhere in the seventies, I think, though.” 

“Poor old gentleman !” said Mrs. Bragg in tones of 
the deepest commiseration. “Ah ! here you are, Ellen ” 
(as that young lady entered the room), “ and with noth- 
ing around your shoulders this cool evening. Go and get 
your scarf, my dear. She is such a child ” (addressing 
Mr. Clarence), “so careless of her health.” 

“All young people are, more or less, I believe,” said 


A WATCH-KEY. 


103 


the young man. “ I am, I know. Uncle often tells me 
that I will pay for it sometime in the future.” 

“ That is exactly what I tell Ellen, but she is so heed' 
less. But, then, she is very young. I suppose that is 
some excuse for her. We have been scolding you finely, 
Ellen — I have, at least,” said Mrs. Bragg, as her daughter 
entered the room, this time arrayed in an elaborately- 
embroidered scarf. 

“ I was about to exonerate myself from any complicity 
in the scolding,” said Mr. Clarence, coming forward and 
offering the young lady a chair. “ It was entirely a solo 
performance on your mother’s part,” he added, smiling. 

“ I know mamma. She treats me as if I were a baby, 
always.” 

“ What else are you, pray ? ” said “mamma,” tapping 
the well-rouged cheek with her sandal-wood fan. “ I 
leave her in your charge, Mr. Clarence.” 

“You are not going, mamma?” 

“ Yes, lazy girl — to answer some letters that you ought 
to have answered yesterday.” 

After Mrs. Bragg’s exit, the conversation took a ten- 
derer and more confidential tone. 

Mr. Clarence insisted upon being allowed to examine a 
locket which depended from Miss Bragg’s watch-chain. 

“ You have some fellow’s likeness in there, I know,” he 
said reproachfully. 

“ You are very wise,” said Miss Bragg, giggling ; “ but 
if I have, that is nothing to you.” 

“ It is a great deal to me,” said the young man, in the 
tone of a man who is very ill-treated indeed, “ and you 
know that it is.” 

“ How am I to know it ? ” said the young lady, signifi- 
cantly. 


104 


A WATCH-KEY. 


“ Why, by — by intuition. Your sex is said to be gifted 
with fine natural perceptions.” 

“I may be an exception to the rule.” 

“You are an exception to most rules.” 

“ If that is designed for a compliment, you will have to 
translate it.” 

“ None so ignorant as those who want to be.” 

“ You are talking riddles,” said Miss Bragg, giving her 
bangs a toss, “and I am the poorest hand in the world to 
solve them.” 

“ Especially when you don’t want to.” 

“ Who said I didn’t want to? ” 

“You are the cruelest woman I ever saw,” said Mr. 
Clarence, stooping to pick up the cruel lady’s pocket- 
handkerchief, which had fallen from her hand. “ What 
number glove do you wear?” he asked, with startling 
irrelevance, detaining the hand which was extended to 
receive the handkerchief. “ I never noticed that you had 
so small a hand before.” 

“Very likely. I am surprised that you have noticed 
that much about me.” 

“ Now, you are cruel again. Let me have a look at 
that locket? ” 

“ I couldn’t possibly.” 

“Why?” 

“ I promised somebody I wouldn’t show it.” 

“ You did !'' (tragically). 

“ I don't care much for the somebody, though,” said 
Miss Bragg in a confidential whisper; “ was just amusing 
myself with him.” 

“Perhaps you are just amusing yourself with me.” 

“ You have no right to say so.” 


A WATCH-KEY. 


105 


“ How long are you going to stay in Oaktown ?” said 
Mr. Clarence, irrelevant again. 

“ I don’t know, really. But that is a matter of no 
importance.” 

“ It is a matter of very great importance to me, and to 
that other fellow, too, I suppose.” 

“ What other fellow? ” 

“As if you needed to be told. I foresee trouble 
between myself and that same fellow. If he gets in my 
way when I go to Milledgeville — ” 

^'Are you going to Milledgeville?” said Miss Bragg, 
innocently. “ Have you any business there ? ” 

“Very important business.” 

“You don’t say so ! What — what sort of business, if 
I may ask ? ” 

“ Do you really want me to tell you ? ” 

“ Of course, or — ” 

“ Ellen,” said Miss Alcott, entering at this most inop- 
portune moment, “ here is the book you asked me to lend 
you.” 

“ Ever so much obliged,” said Miss Bragg, receiving 
the book, and wishing its giver at the antipodes. 

“ Miss Wilkins is coming up the walk. Miss Mary,” said 
a servant, putting his head in at the door. 

“ Let me make good my escape, then, before she gets 
here,” said Mr. Clarence, rising. 

“ Why ? ” asked Miss Bragg, with evident discomfiture. 

“ She has the longest tongue in Oaktown,” said the 
young gentleman, retreating through the back-parlor 
door. “ I am sorry for whoever she has come to see.” 

“ That is you, I suspect, Ellen,” said Miss Alcott, as 
the door-bell sounded. “She told mother that she 
intended calling on your mother and yourself.” 


io6 


A WATCH-KEY. 


Miss Bragg resigned herself to the inevitable — was 
delighted to make Miss Wilkins’ acquaintance, when that 
lady was formally introduced to her. Mrs. Bragg, who 
came down shortly thereafter, was also charmed to meet 
Miss Wilkins. 

That lady was charmed in turn, and carried off most 
glowing accounts of Mrs. and Miss Bragg’s toilets, stylish 
appearance, etc. 

If the ladies had only known it. Miss Wilkins fully 
paid for the draught upon their time she had levied, by a 
wholesale advertisement of their many elegancies. 

“ I never saw such diamonds ! ” she afterwards confided 
to her bosom-friend confidante. Miss Brooks. “They 
must have cost a small fortune. They ” (meaning the 
ladies) “ are immensely wealthy, I understand.” 

“ Mrs. Alcott says they have an elegant home in Mil- 
ledgeville,'” said Miss Brooks. “ I think I shall call 
to-morrow.” 

And she did. And so did everybody, and it was 
agreed, on all sides, that two such elegant ladies as Mrs. 
and Miss Bragg had never dawned upon the social hori- 
zon of Oaktown. Their fortune was variously estimated 
at from one, to two, to three hundred thousand dollars. 
Some went as high as half a million. They owned a 
large landed estate in North Carolina, it was understood, 
in addition to their Virginia possessions. 

Meantime, Mr. Clarence’s attentions waxed more and 
more devoted. He was Miss Bragg’s shadow, and that 
young lady was nowise loath to be shadowed. Th'e very 
memory of Tunstall Clavering seemed to have faded away 
from hers and her mother’s * recollection. Mrs. Bragg 
was in exuberant spirits. More than ever she congratu- 
lated herself upon the new parlor carpet and curtains. 


A WATCH-KEY. \6J 

She could never have introduced the elegant Mr. Clar- 
ence to their worn and faded predecessors. 

That 3^oung gentleman had asked formal leave to visit 
Miss Bragg at her own home, and, of course, that could 
mean but one thing, Mrs. Bragg reasoned to herself. 
Permission had been most obligingly granted, and every- 
thing was on velvet. 

Meantime, Mrs. Talons’ curiosity as to what could pos- 
sibly be detaining Mrs. Bragg in Oaktown so long, since 
Tunstall Clavering had returned, was very nearly killing 
her. 

She had a dozen different hypotheses upon the subject, 
but none of them, as it chanced, bore any relation to the 
truth. 

Mrs. Bragg had written to one of her friends in Mil- 
ledgeville a glowing account of Ellen’s social triumphs 
and galaxy of beaux. 

But Mrs. Talons took very little stock in that account, 
as rendered by the friend in question. 

“ Lavinia Bragg says so,” was Mrs. Talons’ significant 
reply, when the good-natured and credulous lady had 
been expatiating half an hour or more upon the elegant 
time Ellen was having in the mountains. “And as to her 
having a beau worth a hundred thousand dollars,” Mrs. 
Talons added — “if that were true, Lavinia would marry 
them on the spot. She would never take her hands off 
them till they were man and wife. I know her, you see. 
My opinion is that Tunstall Clavering has, at last, given 
her to understand that he’s not to be trapped. Tillet did 
that before him. She gave him just such a run before he 
was engaged to Marian Everett. By the way — do you 
know when they are to be married ?” 

“In the spring, I hear; sometime in April.” 


io8 


A WATCH-KEY. 


CHAPTER XII. 

“Allow me to congratulate you, Tunstall,” said Tillet 
Clavering, coming into the room in which his brother and 
aunt were sitting, and throwing his handsome person 
indolently down upon an inviting lounge near the fire. 

“About what?” said Tunstall, with his usual impassive 
expression of countenance, as he lazily turned the leaves 
of the book he was reading. 

“ Why, the siege is raised, man — raised, for good and 
all. You can now walk the streets in peace, without the 
constant fear of being pounced upon by the Braggs from 
some unexpected quarter. They have bagged higher 
game, so the report is, and can afford to let you go.” 

“What nonsense is that you are talking, Tillet ?” said 
Mrs. Golding, looking up, with a smile, from her knitting, 
into the handsome, laughing face of “ her boy.” 

“ No nonsense at all, auntie,” said Tillet ; “ only the 
Braggs have returned in full force, and — ” 

“That’s stale news,” said Tunstall, looking up from his 
book. “ They got back over a week ago.” 

“But there is more behind it, if you will just give me 
a chance to tell it without interrupting me. I have a 
budget almost as long as Mrs. Talons’,” continued Tillet, 
turning to his aunt. “They have returned, and are soon 
to be followed by a young Croesus, who has fallen a vic- 
tim to Miss Ellen’s youthful charms.” 

“I heard something of the kind up street,” said Tun- 
stall smiling, “ but didn’t pay much attention to it.” 

“ I am inclined to believe there is a modicum of truth 
in the report,” said Tillet, running his fingers through his 


A WATCH-KEY. 


109 


hair, “ for I detected a difference in the quality of Mrs. 
Bragg’s bow this evening. It had taken on several acces- 
sions of dignity. She is usually a compound mixture of 
urbanity and suavity to us, you know.” 

“ Well, wasn’t she this evening ? ” 

“ There was a difference,” said Tillet. “ I can hardly 
define it, but it existed. She is anticipating her honors 
as mother to Mrs. Crcesus, I think.” 

“If there is any truth in the report,” said Tunstall; 
“ if Ellen really has a rich suitor, Milledgeville won’t be 
able to hold Mrs. Bragg.” 

“ The sidewalks will certainly have to be widened,” said 
Tillet gravely. “ Somebody had better see the city 
fathers about it at once.” 

“ Boys, I don’t like to hear you talk so,” said Mrs. 
Golding, reprovingly. “ It is not charitable. I do really 
hope that Ellen has made a good match. Poor Lavinia 
has seen a good deal of trouble. Life has been hard lines 
to her in many respects. I hope she may be compensated 
for it.” 

“ I am sure that you couldn’t insult her more than to 
suggest such a thing,” said Tillet. “ She would indig- 
nantly resent the idea that her lot in life was susceptible 
of improvement. I thought everybody knew that she 
inhabited the supreme pinnacle of earthly felicity. All 
her belongings are perfect.” 

“ Her husband is a good many degrees removed from 
perfection, I think,” said Tunstall, quietly. 

“ Why, ‘ Henry ’ ! ” said Tillet laughing and mimicking 
Mrs. Bragg so perfectly that Mrs. Golding was compelled 
to laugh too. “ You don’t mean to say that he could be 
improved upon ? ” 

“ There is no accounting for tastes,” said Tunstall, 


tto 


A WATCH-KEY. 


dryly; “but if I were a woman, I don’t think a man of 
his habits would be much to my mind. He has nearly 
impoverished the family at the gaming-table ; has spent 
everything he had on cards, except their home and one 
little plantation. That little remnant would, I dare say, 
have gone the way of all the rest, if Mrs. Bragg hadn’t a 
right in them which she has been too sensible to relin- 
quish.” 

“ Now, don’t you see how uncharitable you have been ? ’’ 
said Mrs. Golding, endeavoring to point a moral. “You 
have been laughing at the poor woman and ridiculing her 
for trying to do the most natural thing in the world — 
trying to provide for her daughter a settlement in life, 
which will make her independent of such a father as 
Henry Bragg. Poor girl ! I don’t know what will become 
of her, if she doesn’t marry before her mother dies.” 

“ But that is no excuse for her airs and graces, auntie,” 
said Tillet, persistently. “ Why wont people be natural ! ’’ 
he said, energetically rising from his recumbent position 
and gesticulating with emphasis. “ Naturalness is the 
most beautiful thing in the world, the most graceful. 
Airs denote a vacuum always. They are put on to sup- 
plement conscious deficiencies. A beautiful woman does 
not placard her forehead with, ‘ Behold ! I am beautiful.’ 
She knows that everybody sees that she is. Facts are 
self-evident things, and, whenever you see a man or 
woman persistently calling attention to this or that quality 
or possession, you may set it down as an assured fact that 
he or she is painfully conscious of deficiency in that very 
particular.” 

Having delivered himself of which harangue, Mr. 
Clavering subsided into silence and a recumbent position. 

“Ah ! my child,” said his aunt, still busy with the soft 


A WATCH-KEY. 


iti 


knitting in her hands, “ young people have a great deal to 
learn — charity, among the rest. We are very intolerant 
when we are young. It seems so easy, then, to do and 
be just the right thing, but, as we grow older, we learn 
that it is harder than we thought for. There are so many 
temptations and obstacles that meet us at every turning 
in life. I think,” said the old lady in a musing sort of 
way, as if she was talking more to herself than to her 
companions, “ that- the scriptural injunction, ‘ Bear ye one 
another’s burdens,’ has reference to the foibles and frail- 
ties of our fellow-beings, rather than to their sorrows and 
outside afflictions. These we all have: to bear individ- 
ually, but our moral infirmities we can help one another 
to bear by being patient with and lenient towards them. 
We are all poor, weak, erring human creatures, and it 
behooves us to be very tender towards one another’s 
failings.” 

“ You are a saint, auntie. There is no use trying to be 
like you.” 

“ I am an old woman, my dear, and have seen a great deal 
of life- -enough to make me sorry for almost everybody. 
No one is exempt from trouble. It comes to us all, 
sooner or later, and we ought, all of us, to have a very 
large charity, one for another.” 

“ I am a very naughty boy, am I not ? ” said Tibet, 
affectionately taking the hand which lay for a moment 
idle in his aunt’s lap. 

“ You are very young, my dear,” said the old lady, 
passing her soft, old hand over the young man’s glossy 
hair. 

Then there was silence for a moment or two. 

The cheery wood-fire crackled and sparkled, and the 
December sunshine flooded the room. It was a very idyl 
of prosperity and peace. The very cat sitting purring in 


I 12 


A WATCH-KEY. 


the corner, added to the general atmosphere of coziness 
and comfort. What a far, far-off thing the great seeth- 
ing world of trouble and care would have seemed to an 
invisible looker-on ! What a haven of rest that quiet 
fireside looked! But, alas! that.it should have been 
the quiet that precedes the earthquake — the treacherous 
calm before the awful storm, so soon to descend upon 
that happy ingle in a whirlwind of destruction and woe. 


A WATCH-KEY. 


3 


CHAPTER XIII. 

“ What I want to know,” said Mrs. Talons, waxing 
eloquent, is where — did — she — get — the — money — from?” 

The scene was the ante-room of the little photograph 
gallery of Milledgeville, in which several ladies were con- 
vened, waiting their turn for “a sitting.” 

“ She has pretty nearly refurnished the house from top 
to toe,” continued Mrs. Talons ; “ has a full-length pier mir- 
ror in the parlor, and — and I don’t know what all. And 
the best part of it all is, she speaks of all this outlay of 
money as if it were a mere bagatelle — as if it were an every- 
day matter with her — when everybody knows that the 
Braggs have been living from hand to mouth for the last 
year or more, as large as Lavinia talks. I confess it puzzles 
me to know where she got the money for all this expendi- 
ture. I know well enough what it is for. It is to keep 
up appearances and make a big show before this young 
man Clarence. I’ve no doubt he thinks they are as rich 
as cream. I can just see Lavinia now putting on airs in 
Oaktown, where she was not known. There’s no telling 
what she has passed herself off as being worth, in order 
to entrap this young man. If he doesn’t have all this 
display to pay for some time in the future, I shall be a 
badly-fooled woman ; but she can hardly have drawn on 
him yet, and where did she get the money from?” 

The voluble flow of sound ceased for a moment, and 
Mrs. Orton, who was the wife of the Milledgeville regis- 
ter of deeds, spoke at this juncture : 

“ They have mortgaged their place in the country. 
Mr. Orton drew up the papers not long since.” 


A WATCH-KEY. 


1 14 


“ What ! ” said Mrs. Talons, springing nearly out of her 
seat. 

“It was a very injudicious movement, I think,” said 
Mrs. Orton. “ That farm is their one dependence. Mr. 
Bragg is making nothing — ” 

“ But debts,” put in Mrs. Talons. “ I understand every- 
thing now. It is as plain as a pikestaff. Lavinia and 
Henry Bragg are both playing down their heaviest cards 
to take this young man in, and if he doesn't pay for it — ” 
The hiatus was more expressive than words. 

“ I wonder if it is really true that he is so very wealthy? ” 
said Mrs. Orton, again taking up the conversation. 

“ That’s hard to tell,” said Mrs. Talons. “ If you’d 
listen to Lavinia, you’d think that Vanderbilt was a poor 
man to him, but everybody knows her. I don’t really 
know what to think. The whole affair puzzles me. I 
knew,” she added, triumphantly, “ that they were not 
staying up in the mountains so long for nothing.” 

Meanwhile, the lady whose private affairs were being 
so publicly discussed, was treading, metaphorically speak- 
ing, on air. She could scarcely sleep at night for the 
visions and schemes which floated through her brain of 
the glorious future of unlimited wealth which she was to 
enjoy in the person of her daughter when — the clods were 
piled upon an old man’s coffin and his nephew reigned in 
his stead. It would, no doubt, have been very soothing 
to the feelings of the old man in question if he could 
have been admitted into the sanctity of Mrs. Bragg’s 
thoughts, and read therein the calculations based on his 
demise. Life had never seemed so rose-colored to Mrs. 
Bragg as at the present moment. Thawed by the pros- 
pect of a rich son-in-law, upon whose purse he would 


A WATCH-KEY. 


II5 

levy ad libitum, Mr. Bragg had relaxed into as much 
amiability as he ever indulged in in the bosom of his 
family. He had made no objection to the mortgage, nor 
to the application of the money raised thereby. He 
regarded it in the light of an investment, which would 
bring in its returns by-and by. His wife had raised her- 
self in his estimation by the cleverness with which she 
had managed the whole affair. And Ellen, too, he looked 
upon with a more indulgent eye. As the avenue to a 
rich son-in-law’s pocket book, she was very tolerable 
indeed. The young lady herself was in a state of 
supreme beatitude. She had nothing more to ask of 
Fate. A rich husband ! Her wildest ambitions had 
never taken a higher flight. An atmosphere of sup- 
pressed exaltation pervaded the entire house. The very 
cat and dog seemed to feel it — looked sleeker and shinier 
than ever, in the prospect of so much good fortune; as 
for the servants, they, too, shared in the general elation. 
The “butler” had been called in from the farm and sub- 
jected to a course of training; but, like the servants in 
Goldsmith’s drama of “ She Stoops to Conquer,” he had 
made no very alarming progress in proficiency; his 
appearance was still strikingly suggestive of the corn-field 
and the hoe-handle ; but his little awkwardnesses did not 
disturb Mrs. Bragg. She had soared above the reach of 
all petty annoyances into an upper calm of imperturbable 
serenity. Even Sophie Talons was powerless to annoy 
her now. She nearly threw that worthy lady into an 
apoplexy, on more .than one occasion, by the calm, 
exalted way’ in which she woirld listen to any and all 
admiring mention of her newly-acquired elegancies. She 
treated them as if they were, indeed, a mere bagatelle — 


A WATCH-KEY. 


1 16 

matters of such every-day occurrence as to be nowise 
worthy of note. 

But time sped on, as it always speeds on, in the track 
of mortal destiny. The Clarence-Bragg engagement 
passed into the list of accomplished facts. Then prepara- 
tions for the wedding set in. And such preparations ! 
Milledgeville had never seen the like before. The trous- 
seau and other particulars kept Mrs. Talons in raw mate- 
rial for a period of weeks. Meanwhile, Mrs. Bragg 
moved through it all with the same exalted calm, giving 
orders and surveying operations from a far-off, unapproach- 
able height of majestic dignity. 

How that dignity would have fared, if she could have 
looked over the shoulder of her prospective son-in-law, as 
he indited the following epistle, is open to conjecture. 
It ran as follows : 

Dear Uncle: I dislike excessively to bother you 
again about money — especially after the rasping you gave 
me when I applied to you last. I know that you have 
more than paid me for everything I have done for you, 
but I am sure you will help me this one time more, when 
I explain the facts in the case to you. In the first place, 
I have, obedient to your orders, disentangled myself com- 
pletely from that other affair, and am now engaged to 
marry a very wealthy lady. She is an only child, and her 
parents live in elegant style. You must be aware, my 
dear uncle, that it requires money to figure in the capacity 
of engaged man to such a lady,. and I am out of money — 
completely out. If you will advance me money enough 
to get through with this affair— to get married on, I 
mean — I will refund it as soon as ever the knot is tied. 


A WATCH-KEY. 


II7 

and be everlastingly obliged, in addition. This is posi- 
tively the last time I shall ever apply to you for money. 

Your affectionate nephew, 

Theodore Clarence.” 

This letter evoked the following reply : 

''Dear Nephew : I send you, herewith, a check for one 
thousand dollars, of which you can make ducks and 
drakes as fast as you please. You need not refund it. 
It is a gift, and the last one I shall ever make you. If 
you can’t take care of yourself in the future, your wife’s 
relations must take care of you. 

Your affectionate uncle, 

John Hildegard.” 

This bitter-sweet epistle was welcomed with open arms 
by its recipient, its substantial contents more than coun- 
terbalancing any lack of cordiality in its tone. What 
mattered a little tartness, more or less, on the part of an 
irascible uncle! The thing was, that he was the richer by 
one thousand dollars. Mr. Clarence’s thoughts lingered 
upon that pleasant fact, ignoring all collateral ones. 

Meantime, preparations for the wedding went forward. 
The day was set and nearly approaching. Milledgeville 
was in quite a fever of expectation over the two wed- 
dings in prospect — Miss Bragg’s and Miss Everett’s. 

The latter had been postponed till spring, but prepara- 
tions were also going on in the Everett household for the 
■‘coming event.” Mrs. Everett had been busily engaged 
since the cold weather in “ fine sewing ” — that inevitable 
forerunner and herald of approaching Hymen. 

She had just finished a dainty garment, all lace and 
embroidery, and had folded it away in her work-basket. 


Il8 - A WATCH-KEY. 

one blustering winter evening, when we will take the lib- 
erty of intruding upon her. 

She was quite alone, but for the sleeping occupant upon 
the lounge. Marian • had fallen asleep over a book she 
was reading, and lay with her beautiful face thrown into 
clear relief by the dark sofa-cushion upon which it 
rested. 

An artist would have asked nothing more for it — not a 
touch of color more or less, or an altered line or curve. 

“ She is perfect,” thought the mother, passionately, 
looking at her with the hungry, longing eyes of that 
maternal affection which sees so much ; which can look 
into futurity so far; which would fain suffer and endure 
vicariously all that the object of its devotion is allotted 
to suffer and endure. 

“ If I could only shield her, for all time, from all sor- 
row ! ” thought the poor mother, as many another mother 
has thought before her, and Vvill think after her, to the 
end of time. 

Oh ! the height, and length, and depth, and breadth of 
that instinct of mother-love ! The one thing in a world 
of change that changeth not — the one supreme, unselfish, 
undying human passion ! 

The falling of a book broke the silence. 

Mrs. Everett started violently. Poor woman ! her ner- 
vous system was a wreck. She started at everything. 

The noise of the falling book startled Marian, also. 
She awoke with a smile. The lovely, dimpled mouth 
seemed made for smiles and kisses. 

“ It won’t do to tell Tillet that I went to sleep over his 
book,” she said, laughing. “ What are you doing, little 
mamma ? ” 

But there were thoughts astir in the mother’s heart too 


A WATCH-KEY. 


II9 

deep for words. She was thinking, thinking, thinking of 
the future. Not of her own, for to that she gave scarcely 
a thought, but of Marian’s. What would be the outcome 
of this marriage? Would the girl’s gladness and bright- 
ness all fade away, as hers had done, under the wedded 
yoke ? Would her life narrow down to one round of 
uncongenial cares and duties that she must tread, footsore, 
from morn to eve ? The mother’s heart rebelled. It 
could not, should not, be. 

She looked with yearning eyes — this poor mother — 
upon the one thing she loved best in the world. 

Marian was now seated upon a low ottoman at her 
mother’s feet, with one hand and arm thrown lightly 
across that mother’s lap. 

“ Marian ! ” 

The girl looked up with a smile. 

“ You must promise me one thing. Never let anything 
worry you when — when you are married. If you have 
any troubles of any sort, come to me. I am older than 
you are, and’ can tell you better what to do than you 
would know yourself. Don’t bother with servants or — 
or anything. Just let things go. Only keep yourself 
young, and fresh, and happy. Oh ! my darling, I couldn’t 
bear to see you looking faded, and broken, and old. It 
would kill me, Marian. Do you want to requite me for 
all the love and care I have ever bestowed upon you ? ” 

“ Certainly I do, mamma! ” 

“ Well, then, be as happy as ever you can. Let nothing 
trouble you. Remember, your happiness is my happi- 
ness ; your misery — my God ! I cannot think of such a 
thing. ‘ That way madness lies ! ’ ” 

“ Mamma — don’t.” 

Mrs. Everett was weeping passionately. 


120 


A WATCH-KEY. 


“ My child ! My child ! ” she said, between her sobs 
“If God will just be good to you, I will be willing to 
endure anything myself — to suffer for you and for myself 
four-fold. If I could only do that — could only bear, in 
my own person, all the sorrows that will ever be your 
portion ! ” 

“ I would rather bear them myself, mamma. Haven’t 
I as much right, I should like to know, to love and bear 
for you, as you have to love and bear for me?” said 
Marian, indignantly. “ You are an unconscionable 
monopolist, Mrs. Everett. But here comes papa,” she 
said, looking up between smiles and tears. “ I shall leave 
you to him.” 

Then taking her mother’s face between her two hands, 
Marian kissed it tenderly and left the room. 

Immediately thereafter Mr. Everett entered it. He 
took in the situation at a glance. His wife’s heavy eyes 
and tear-swollen features would have enlightened him, if 
he had needed enlightening, but he did not. He knew 
how matters were instinctively. His wife had been “ tak- 
ing on ” about the marriage. 

“ I really do think, Sibyl,” he said, taking a chair before 
the fire, “ that, if you have any such insuperable objec- 
tion to Marian’s marriage as you seem to have — that’s 
what’s the matter with you now, I know — that you ought 
to do one of two things: either make up your mind to 
it, or else break it off and be done with it. This eternal 
mourning and wailing — ” 

Mr. Everett’s silence was sufficiently expressive of his 
disgust at the “mourning and wailing” in question. 

“ I, at least, do not inflict my ‘ mourning and wailing ’ 
upon you,” said his wife, with a flash of that spirit which 
years of discipline had not been thoroughly able to subdue. 


A WATCH-KEY. 


I2I 


“ But you do upon Marian, and that is worse still,” said 
Mr. Everett. 

Here the conversation ended. 

The wife was intent upon her own musings, the hus- 
band upon his, and, as is often the case, both had an 
instinctive knowledge of the other’s train of thought. 
By what subtle and spiritual telegr.iphy do we feci each 
other’s thoughts? How perfectly conscious we are at 
times of frames of mind in other people which have 
never been revealed to us by spoken language ! How 
thoroughly we can know an opinion of us which has 
never been put into words ! “ Opinion ” is the subtlest 

thing in the world. We betray it, or it betrays itself, 
unconsciously, in matters light as air — a look, a tone, a 
glance. Obtuse indeed is the man or woman who requires 
to be told, in so many words, ‘.‘Sir, or Madam, I do not 
approve of you.” 

Now, Mrs. Everett had been painfully conscious for 
years that her husband did not approve of her; or, if that 
is putting the case rather strongly, that she was not his 
idea of a wife by any means — that he thought her fan- 
ciful, hard to please, and crotchety generally. Not that 
he had ever told her so by word of mouth — he was too 
courteous a gentleman for that — but she knew it, never- 
theless, felt it — this estimate of his — in the profoundest 
depths of her being. It had been the ball and chain she 
had dragged at her feet for years, and which had changed, 
as the years rolled by, her once light and springing tread 
to a slow and weary footfall. Alas! how many feet there 
are thus balled and chained ! 

And Mr. Everett, in his turn, resented the very result 
and outgrowth of his own conduct. He considered it a * 
personal reflection upon himself as a husband that hi^ 

6 


122 


A WATCH-KEY. 


wife was not a happy woman. A very ungrateful one 
he called her in the sacred recesses of his own thq,ughts. 
Why wasn’t she happy ! Didn’t she have everything to 
make her so — a good husband, healthy children, a com- 
fortable home ? What more could any reasonable woman 
ask ? 

And thus it was that they drifted farther and farther 
apart — this man and woman whom God had joined 
together. Not that there was, or ever had been, any 
vulgar sparring between them. The surface of the stream 
was smooth. It was the under-currents that were working 
the harm. 


A WATCH-KEY. 


123 


CHAPTER XIV. 

“ Well, which shall it be, Marian ? — an establishment of 
our own, or a home with auntie just at first? Which 
would you prefer?” 

Tibet Clavering put this question to his betrothed, as 
they sat facing each other before Mrs. Everett’s parlor 
fire. 

The lovers were alone, and Tibet thought it a good 
time to get Marian’s “idea about things.” 

But Marian’s “ idea ” about such prosaic details as “ set- 
tling down,” housekeeping, etc., were very vague indeed. 

“ I don’t care,” she answered carelessly — “just as you 
think about that.” 

“ But which do you think would suit you best ? ” per- 
sisted Tibet. 

“ Oh ! anything would suit me,” said Marian, laughing, 
“but bother. I have a very shallow brain, and it gels 
muddy whenever it gets stirred up ; whenever I think or 
bother over things much.” 

“ Do you think it will ‘ bother ’ you very much to answer 
my question?” said Tibet, laughing. 

“ I have answered it,” said Marian. “ Suit yourself and 
you will suit me.” 

“ If you leave it to me,” said Tibet, “ I say ‘ Let’s go 
to auntie’s.’ It will be a great pleasure to her, and save 
you the ‘ bother ’ of housekeeping, although I could never 
see,” he continued, .sagely, “ why there need be any bother 
about that, if it was managed properly. The thing is to 
get good servants and then require of them to be honest 
and faithful.” 



124 


A WATCH-KEY. 


“ They are not all honest and faithful, by any means,” 
said Marian, who, being a woman, had a little more light 
on the subject than Tibet did. 

“ Get none but those who are, then,” said Tibet, with the 
air of a man who makes the most matter of-course propo- 
sition in the world, “ and if you should chance to get 
hold of a dishonest or incapable one, why discharge him 
and get another.” 

“ You must have been studying household economy,” 
said Marian tauntingly, “ but I conless the subject has 
little interest for me. My motto is to take life — and that 
includes housekeeping, servants and everything — easily. 
As papa says, it is time enough to take trouble when it 
comes to you. I shall never go to meet it.” 

“That is the only rational way to look at the subject,’ 
said the young man oracularly. “ Life is web enough, in 
the majority of instances. Of course there are exceptions 
to the rule in individual cases, just as there are occasional 
earthquakes and whirlwinds in the natural world ; but all 
this great amount of trouble that you hear people — 
especially old people — tabbing about, is mostly imaginary ; 
is composed nine-tenths of apprehension.” 

“ It is a sort of habit, too, that they fab into of talking 
that way,” said Marian, sagely. “ Mamma does it some- 
times.” 

“And so does Aunt Susan — as sensible a woman as' 
she is.” 

^'Apropos of trouble, you ought to .have heard what 
mamma said to me this evening,” said Marian, suddenly 
laughing. 

“ What was it ? ” 

“Why, she gave me my orders this evening,” said 
Marian, her whole face dimpling over with smiles, “that 


A WATCH-KEY. 


125 


I was never to worry over anything after— after I was 
married,” she said with a slightly heightened color — “ said 
I must just keep fresh and young and pretty. That was 
to be my exclusive business.” 

“So say I,” said Tillet. “I want you to do just that 
thing. I couldn’t bear the idea of my wife’s being a 
drudge. The idea of this pretty little hand,” 'he said» 
endeavoring to possess himsef of it and failing — “ the idea 
of this pretty little hand washing dishes^ or doing any 
menial work, is a perfect sacrilege.” 

“ I am glad to hear you say so,” said Marian, laughing ; 
“shall remind you of it some day.” 

“You will never need to do it,” said her lover, indig- 
nantly. “ Do you really suppose I would allow you to 
do such things, if you were so minded ? How little you 
know me ! ” 

“All men talk that way when they are courting,” said 
Marian, shaking her head. 

“ But they don’t live up to it, you mean.” 

"'Do they always live up to it ? ” queried Marian in turn. 

“ I don’t know about other men, but I do know about 
myself. Do you really suppose, Marian,” said her lover, 
dropping his tone of gay badinage and looking seriously 
into her beautiful face, “that I shall ever love you less 
than now, if you are ever so broken and old ? Answer 
me, dear ? ” 

“ Well, I don’t know,” said Marian, wickedly. “ Ugly 
old women don’t generally have very devoted husbands — 
so the wise ones say.” 

“And / say,” said Tillet, wrathfully, “that a man is a 
brute who ceases to care for a woman who has grown old 
in his service because she is no longer pretty and young. 
It is bad enough to turn a faithful old horse out to die, 


126 


A WATCH-KEY. 


but to treat a good woman virtually in the same way is — 
is atrocious,” said Tillet, seemingly at a loss for a suffi- 
ciently denunciatory adjective. “ What are you doing ? ’ 
he asked, after a minute, seeing that Marian was scrib- 
bling something with a pencil on the fly leaf of a book, 
which she afterwards tore out and held up for him to see. 

“ ‘ Item first,’ ” she read, with a dancing light in her blue 
eyes— “ ‘ am not to wash dishes, or perform any menial 
work. • Item second : Am always to be flattered and made 
love^to down to extremest old age.’ I shall write down 
other items, from time to time, and show this to you ten 
or fifteen years hence.” 

“ Don’t talk that way, Marian,” said Tillet, with a sud- 
den, strange, unaccountable thrill. “ Who knows where 
we both may be ten or fifteen years hence — dead, pos- 
sibly.” 

“ Who is prognosticating evil now?” said Marian, with 
wide-open eyes. 

“ I suppose I was,” said Tillet, more gravely than he 
had yet spoken, “ but you made me feel so curiously. I 
didn’t know before that I had a particle of superstition 
about me.” 

“And have you ? Papa has so little patience with any- 
thing of the kind, but mamma is right superstitious about 
some things.” 

“Give me a tune on the piano, to exorcise this spell 
you have cast over me,” said Tillet, rising and opening 
the instrument. 

“ What shall I play ? ” asked Marian, turning round 
upon the piano stool and looking, as she always looked, 
bewitchingly beautiful. 

“Anything that is cheerful.” 

“ How would ‘ Old Zip Coon ’ suit ? ” 


A WATCH-KEY. 


127 


“ I have changed my mind. Sing something that is 
tender and mournful.” 

Marian touched a few soft chords and began “ l^rena” — 
an old song that had been her mother’s. She had a 
remarkably sweet, flexible voice, as well as a very expres- 
sive one. The mournful words of the plaintive old song 
were more than the man who was listening to them could^ 
bear. 

“Stop, Marian,” he said hoarsely, putting a sudden 
end to the music by taking both the musician’s hands 

within his own. “ I am as nervous as a woman to-night — 

* 

can’t imagine what has unmanned me so. I am in no 
humor for having my feelings worked upon — would rather 
you resumed your teasing.” 

“ You are hard to suit, monsieur.” 

“ I am, indeed, since even you cannot suit me.” 

“ That is the neatest compliment you have paid me for 
a month. It can’t be extemporaneous. You must have 
been getting it up some time.” 

Although the girl spoke lightly, she, too, had fallen 
under the spell which had so suddenly come over her 
lover. 

“ You have infected me with your nervousness,” she 
said, with a little shiver. “ I wonder what has come over 
us both. I never felt so strangely. I can’t account 
for it.” 

Who can account lor those strange, mysterious influ- 
ences which sway us as the moon sways the tides, but of 
whose origin we know nothing? Presentiments, the 
superstitious call them, and we who are not superstitious 
try to reason them away. But, like Banquo’s ghost, they 
will not always “ down ” at our bidding. 

“ I suspect it is time to say good-night,” said Tillet, 


128 


A WATCH-KEY. 


rising. “ My love — my love,” he said, framing the beau- 
tiful face, for a moment, with his shapely hands, “ God 
keep you and shield you from all harm.” 

Then he kissed the woman he loved tenderly and sol- 
emnly, and was gone. 

“ I believe I have half a notion to cry, ’ said Marian to 
herself indignantly, as she stood after her lover’s depart- 
ure over the embers of the dying fire. “ What can be 
the matter with me ? He does love me, ’ she said to her- 
self softly, “ but no whit better than I love him.” 


A WATCH-KEY. 


129 


CHAPTER XV. 

In the morning after the evening whose events we 
have just related, Tillet Clavering rode through the streets 
of Milledgeville in the light buggy he always used for his 
own especial driving. 

The roads were good for the season — smooth and com- 
pact — and the sky overhead was a real “sky blue.” The 
air was cool and bracing — just enough so to be invigora- 
ting, the young man thought, from the depths of his fur- 
lined overcoat. How the temperature might have effected 
one not quite so thoroughly protected from it was 
another question, and one that he didn’t stop to speculate 
about. His speculations were of an entirely different 
cast — ran in an altogether optimistic vein. He was an 
optimist by temperament and education, this young man. 
Life had always gone so smoothly with him. It had 
stretched out before him, all the twenty-three years of 
his life, like one of those beautiful shell-roads near the 
sea beach, upon which one can drive for miles, without 
jar or jolt or other inconvenience; and he had traveled 
over it in the patent-spring vehicle of his own buoyant, 
elastic temperament. His reflections, on the present 
occasion, were tinged — as our reflections are generally 
tinged — with the color of the life which had preceded 
them, and ran in this wise: What an altogether delight- 
ful and satisfactory place this much abused old world was 
anyhow, and what a thoroughly disagreeable and unreas- 
onable set of beings the whole class of pessimists were ! 
Mr. Clavering had a supreme disgust for them all — of 
every age, sex, condition, and nationality. It was a habit. 


30 


A WATCH-KEY. 


as Marian had said, into which they had fallen of always 
looking on the dark side of things — a sort of mental 
strabismus, so to speak — but it was a habit that ought to 
be fought against, not given way to. There were a few 
cares, he was compelled to admit, in which life seemed to 
be all dark side to a few unfortunate people, but they 
were very, very few and had their compensations, he sup- 
posed, in some way. The most of people, this young 
sage reasoned, made their own troubles, in a great meas- 
ure. Now this morning, as he was riding through Mill- 
edgeville, he had heard Mr. Sawyer, an architect with a 
good business, standing on the door-step of his comfort- 
able home, without an overcoat^ anathematizing the 
weather. The young man smiled as he remembered it. 
To put on an overcoat, seemed, to him, such an infinitely 
easier thing to do. He was not acquainted with the con- 
dition of Mr. Sawyer’s exchequer, nor of the fact that 
the gentleman in question was a very proud man — far too 
proud to appear on the streets in a shabby overcoat. He 
preferred braving the weather; and, as his wife and four 
grown daughters had been accommodated, during the 
winter, with new and elegant wraps, it had fallen to his lot 
to put up with an old one which he would never bring 
himself to wear, when the thermometer was above freez- 
ing point. That Tom. Sawyer, a successful busines man, 
with a handsome income, couldn't afford an overcoat, never 
occurred to this young critic. Of the havoc that an 
extravagant wife and ten children can make of a hand- 
some income, was one of the depths in life which his 
youthful plummet had never sounded. He was thinking, 
as he rode along, of that admirable dispensation in the 
economy of Nature of the alterations of the seasons, and 
the changes of temperature consequent thereon. What 


A WATCH-KEY. 


I31 

a necessary and beneficent thing, he thought, was the 
bracing cold of winter ! What a tonic it was A life all 
dreamful, languorous summer days, would be enervating 
physically and mentally. A man needed a little sharp 
air occasionally, to tone him up literally and figuratively. 
The thing was to equip himself for it — to put on. his over- 
coat. 

On the little vehicle bowled over the pleasant level* 
roads and the mind of its occupant kept pace with its 
motion. From one pleasing fancy to another it flitted, 
as is the fashion of young minds, to settle down finally 
upon the gentle, pathetic mother-face, which, as a matter 
of joint duty and affection, Tibet Clavering made a point 
of looking upon, once a month at furthest. 

A few words of explanation may not be amiss here. 

Mrs. Clavering had been for many years an invalid — 
such a hopeless one, as to render her entirely unequal to 
the management of her household, or the rearing of her 
children. The first had devolved upon a maiden sister — 
one of those- quiet, self-sacrificing souls whose whole life 
is exhaled in an aroma of unselfish devotion to some one 
who needs them — and the last had been undertaken and 
accomplished by Mrs. Golding. Mrs. Clavering’s malady— ■ 
softening of the brain — had encroached upon her, as the 
years went by, until she was now almost entirely imbe- 
cile ; her memory was gone; she babbled on, like a little 
child, of whatever fancy chanced to be uppermost in her 
mind, at the time, but retained no lasting impression of 
anything. A singularly painless life hers had been, for 
years. Surrounded by every conceivable comfort, and 
tended by the most assiduous care, her strange, child like 
life drifted on. There was very little to suggest the 
invalid, in her personal appearance, as she now sat before 


132 


A WATCH-KEY. 


the fire in a handsome dressing gown, with her two small 
slippered feet resting upon the shining brass fender. She 
looked quite young — younger, by far, than she really was. 
Only the soft white hair told the tale of longevity, and 
only the strange, pathetic, roving eyes told the story of 
mental deficiency. Her room was a gem. Tillet had 
fitted it up, at his own expense, with every possible com- 
fort and luxury. There was not a room in Mrs. Gold- 
ing’s house superior to it, in point of richness or elegance. 

“ It is not necessary, my son, to spend so much money 
upon your mother,” his father had said to him. “ She is 
not conscious of her surroundings.” 

“ But I am,” said Tillet. “ I like to think of her as 
surrounded by everything she could possibly desire, if she 
zvsre conscious.” And, as was a way with him, the young 
man carried his point. 

“ Here comes Tillet, Anna,” said Miss Harold, the 
maiden sister before alluded to. “ Aren’t you glad ?” 

The invalid looked up with a pleased smile — a soft, 
pathetic, infantile expression — looked up, as a'child might, 
at the handsome, shapely figure, advancing from the gate 
towards the full length glass-door, through which the two 
ladies were looking. Tiie ringing step was soon upon the 
porch, then in the room, and Mrs. Clavering's arms were 
around her son. He kissed her most tenderly, smooth- 
ing back, with a gentle hand, the soft white waves of hair 
which had escaped from the lace head-dress and fallen 
upon her forehead. Then he saluted his aunt, divested 
himself of his overcoat and seated himself before the 
fire. 

“See what I have brought you,” he said, taking a pack- 
age from his pocket, which proved to be a beautiful col- 
ection of shells, and handing if to his mother. “ A 


A WATCH-KEY. 


133 


V 

friend of mine got them for me from the seashore, and I 
brought them to you.” 

Mrs. Clavering’s e}'es brightened. Her mind was soon 
diverted from her son to her shells, which she took from 
the glass case containing them, turning over and toying 
with them, as a child might. 

“ Shall I put them away for you ?” said Miss Harold at 
last. 

“Yes,” said the invalid, tired already with her new toy. 
“ I believe I will go to sleep.” 

“ Let me fix your chair, mother,” said Tibet, adjusting, 
as he spoke, the invalid chair in which his mother was 
sitting, into a comfortable angle for reclining. Then he 
placed a sofa-cushion under her head, an afghan over her 
feet, and the pretty little old lady went gently to sleep. 

“ Do you think it is worth while trying to tell her any- 
thing about my approaching marriage?” said Tibet, after 
awhile, to his aunt. “ Do you think she would under- 
stand ?” 

“ She would forget almost immediately, if she did,” said 
M iss Harold, sighing. 

Poor soul ! the pageants of life all passed her by. She 
could only hear of them from the nun like seclusion of 
her country home, and she had long since ceased to care 
for them. Life with her meant duty — nothing more — 
but she had an affectionate interest in her nephew’s hap- 
piness, and so asked him : “ When is it to be, Tibet ?” 

“ In April,” said the young man, with a happy ring in 
his voice. “Oh! you ought to see her. Aunt Harriet! 
She is the most beautiful — ” 

“Who?” said Miss Harold, who had not kept pace 
with her nephew’s rather incoherent remarks. 


134 


A WATCH-KEY. 


“ Why, Marian, of course,” said the young man laugh- 
ing. “ Who else could it be ? There is but one she in 
the world, you know — for me, he added to himself softly, 
a mental picture rising before him, the while, of the 
beautiful peach-bloom face with its aureole of golden 
hair. “ The one woman in the world for me,” he thought 
fondly. “ What a fortunate man am I !” 

Miss Harold caught his expression — she was not a dull 
woman — and a faint image of all that it indicated, rose 
up before her mental vision. She had taken her own life 
as a matter of course. It had been hard lines always, 
and she had grown into a habit of thinking everybody’s, 
more or less, so ; but here was a glimpse of something 
different, a door ajar through which she saw into another 
world — into that enchanted domain of love and romance 
and beauty, which she had dreamed of in her far-away 
youth. And this boy that she had held in her arms, as a 
baby — he had a wider experience of life than she — he had 
entered it. Its reflex was upon his handsome face, as he 
turned it towards her, with his own winning smile. 

“ I wish you could be at the wedding. Aunt Harriet.” 

“ I would like to be very much, but it is out of the 
question. Who would attend to your mother?” 

“ That is so,” admitted Tibet, reluctantly. “ But I will 
bring her to see you, at all events — her again, you see,” 
added the young man laughing. “ But you won’t need 
a translation this time. Why, here comes father.” 

Mr. Clavering entered the room, shook hands cordially 
with his son, then seated himself before the fire and 
entered into the conversation, which took an entirely dif- 
ferent tone, from the time of his entrance. 

However affectionate the relations between them, a 
man never talks sentiment to his father. Father and son, 


A WATCH-KEY. 


V 


135 


on the present occasion, discussed the weather, business, 
politics and subjects of a like nature. The question of 
the marriage was only once alluded to between them ; 
and, then, Mr. Clavering put the matter-of-fact question 
as to when it would be, and Tillet gave the matter-of-fact 
answer, “ In April.” 

Mrs. Clavering then woke and called for her shells, 
which she displayed, with great pride, to her husband. 

“You are a good son, Tillet,” his father said to him 
approvingly. “ Few young men would think of their 
mother as you do. You never come without bringing her 
something.” 

“ I wish I could do more for her happiness and yours.” 

Mr. Clavering sighed. He was rather given to sighing. 
Tillet had inherited his hopefulness of temperament from 
the mother who now knew neither hope nor fear. Blessed 
exemption ! How blessed they who loved her best were 
shortly doomed to see and feel. And yet how many 
impassioned prayers had been offered up for the restora- 
tion of her intellect — prayers which had been mercifully 
left ungranted. We pray for poisons oftener than we 
ever know. And blessings in disguise — they meet us 
everywhere, and we turn away from them, with an 
anathema ofttimes, straining on and onward after the 
unattainable, which, if attained, would often prove a 
heritage of woe. We are blind, blind, blind, from the 
cradle to the grave. 

“ Cousin Annette Devereux proposes making us a visit 
shortly,” said Mr. Clavering, breaking the silence which 
had fallen upon the little fireside circle, and addressing 
himself to his son. 

“What has put her in that notion, I wonder.^” said 
Tillet, frowning. 


136 


A watch-key. 


His was a very mobile face and gave back the reflection 
of every passing shadow. 

“She has not seen your mother for years — not since — ” 

The omission was mentally supplied by all present. 

“And why is she so anxious to see her now ?” said 
Tillet, still frowning. “ There is no real relationship 
between them. It is nothing but curiosity that brings 
her, and — ” 

“ One can’t tell her so, at all events,” said Miss Harold, 
“ and, as she has invited herself, we will have to receive 
her, when she comes ” 

Nothing more was said on the subject, but the frown 
on Tillet Clavering’s face deepened. Deep down in the 
young man’s nature, underlying all its surface volatility 
and youthful effusiveness, was a proud and sensitive 
reticence, in regard to his private and personal relations 
and emotions. He was the last man in the world to wear 
his heart on his sleeve. All inquisition of the public into 
his private affairs he resented indignantly — especially in 
matters involving his personal feelings; and, in the pres- 
ent instance, he unhesitatingiy set down the prospective 
visitor, whose coming his father had announced, as a rep-- 
resentative of that public which is generally athirst for 
news, and which indulged a chronic curiosity in regard to 
his mother’s “ condition.” He was in nowise ashamed 
of her — his gentle, child-like, afflicted mother ; his feel- 
ings towards her were inexpressibly tender — were those 
of a parent rather than a child. The situation, in their 
case, was reversed. She was the one to be guarded and 
looked after, and it was his place, in part, to do it — his 
and her other nearest and dearest friends. The idea of 
a gaping, curious world looking in upon her child-like 
helplessness and commenting upon, and pitying it, was 


A WATCH-KEY. 


V 


137 


inexpressibly galling to the young man’s sensibilities. 
His mother was sacred to him. He had that tender, 
sensitive feeling about her that a mother often has for a 
puny or deformed child. It was an unfeeling imperti- 
nence, on the part of the world, even to desire to look 
upon her, in her pathetic mental impotence. 


38 


A WATCH-KEY. 


CHAPTER XVL 

“Rich — mond !” yelled the conductor of the Western 
Air-Line Road, as his train slackened its pace and its 
engine, with a demoniac shriek, and panting like a living 
creature, stopped at the depot. 

“American Hotel ! ” 

“ Ballard House ! ” 

“ This way, gentlemen — this is your ’bus,” said the por- 
ter of the Exchange. 

“ Ford’s Hotel, lady — give me your checks.” 

“ I’ve got that lady’s checks ; she’s going with me,” said 
the American man, belligerently. “ This way, lady,” he 
said, almost forcibly inducting a heavily-veiled lady into 
the American ’bus, which was already full, and whose 
door closed with a snap, and whose horses started for- 
ward immediately afterward, leaving behind it and them 
the shrieking, yelling, vociferous crowd of ’busmen and 
truckmen and draymen, and others of that ilk, who always 
infest a depot. 

The ’bus rattled along over the stony street, turning 
one corner after another, until it stopped in front of the 
American Hotel ; then the porter sprang down, threw 
wide open its large glass door and assisted the passengers 
in alighting. There was an old woman with a legion of 
bundles, a young one with a baby, a drummer with two 
or three carpet-bags, a man and his wife with their nurse 
and half-dozen children, and, lastly, a female figure, so 
heavily veiled and shawled that it was impossible to ascer- 
tain anything in regard to her age or personal appearance. 
This figure descended last, and followed with the others 


V 


A WATCH-KEY. 1 39 

up the broad flight of stairs, and then down a long car- 
peted hall which led to the ladies' parlor of the American 
Hotel. The gentlemen of the crowd all went down to 
register and see after rooms, and the female portion settled 
down to “ wait.” The baby set up a squall almost imme- 
diately, and two or three of the half dozen children set 
up a cry for cake. 

“ The cake is all gone, I told you, children,” said the 
mother, pettishly. “ Nancy, see if there is any bread 
left in the lunch-basket.” 

“ No, ma’am,” said the nurse, making the required 
inspection, upon which a general chorus of “ I’m so hun- 
gry,” went up from the children. 

“ I do wish John would come back and get us some sort 
of a room,” said the tired mother. “The children are 
sleepy and hungry. Ah ! here he comes now.” 

“There is nothing for it but patience, wife,” said 
John, coming in at this juncture. “I have been doing 
my best to get you a room, but you will have to wait 
until one can be got ready.” 

“ Papa, I want some candy,” cried a little six-year-old, 
clinging to his father’s knees. 

An alarming shriek from the baby here created a diver- 
sion and attracted the attention of the crowd. The poor 
young mother looked desperate.” 

“Your baby has the colic, I think,” said the more 
experienced mother, going kindly to the rescue. “ Have 
you any paregoric ? ” 

Amidst all this hubbub and confusion the shawled and 
veiled figure sat silently, almost lost to view behind the 
heavy folds of the curtain which spanned the arch of the 
bay-window in which it was seated. Everybody else got 


140 


A WATCH-KEY. 


a room first. At last a servant approached the silent 
figure and said : 

“ This way, lady.” 

Silently the figure arose. Automatically it followed 
the servant’s guidance down a long hall and up two 
flights of stairs to the door of No. 51. 

“ This is your room, lady,” said the servant, throwing 
open the door. “Ring the bell, if you want anything.” 

The “ lady ” entered the room, closed its door, threw 
back her veil and disclosed the features of the girl who 
was still known. to the world as Lydia Mason. She had 
scarcely done so before there was a knock at the door. 

“ Come in,” she said in faltering accents. 

Whereupon a servant opened the door and said: 

“ Excuse me, lady, but you haven’t registered. Your 
name, please. Could you write it upon this?” (handing 
her pencil and paper). 

The girl sat down and wrote in a round, clear hand, 
“ Miss Emily Marvin, Isle of Wight Co., Va.’ 

This she handed to the servant, who left the room with 
it immediately. The roar of the supper-gong announced 
supper just as she closed the door, but Lydia Mason 
wanted no supper; it was the furthest thing from her 
thoughts. She sat down in a low rocker before the fire, 
and listened to the March wind’s howling; it raved and 
shrieked and wailed like a living, tortured thing. Even 
so she had raved and shrieked and wailed, but she was 
quiet enough now. The calm of despair was uj)on her. 

“ On every height there lies repose,” says the greatest 
of German writers. 

Re-pose — literally (according to the derivation of the 
word) a being placed or set back. And some great trou- 
bles — some supreme misfortunes — do as completely set us 


A WATCH-KEY. 


I4I 

back and separate us from all petty sorrows as all petty 
joys — elevate us alike above the reach of either. Great 
woes absorb less ones. What is the gain or loss of for- 
tune to a man under sentence of death ? When the 
worst has been suffered, there comes to all men a great 
calm — the calm of perfect despair ; of perfect repose. 

And, really, when we come to think of it — of the many 
petty, ignoble battles that have daily, hourly, to be fought 
upon those lower planes of suffering whereon the most 
of us pass our lives, is there not something almost to 
envy in the lot of the few upon the supreme heights, 
who have been so utterly vanquished in the warfare with 
Fate as to lay aside their armor — non combatants for- 
ever — henceforward only lookers-on at the great drama 
and farce of life. 

But speculations are idle. Let us return to “ Miss 
Marvin.” 

She crossed the room and rang the bell. A servant 
answered it almost immediately, 

“ Has anyone called or left a note here for me to-day — 
for Miss Marvin ? ” 

“ I will step down to the office and inquire,” said the 
polite chamber-maid. 

“A gentleman in the parlor now to see Miss Marvin — a 
Mr. Cullen,” she announced on her return a moment later. 
“ Shall I tell him that you will see him ? ” 

“ I will go down myself.” 

There was no one in the parlor when Lydia Mason 
entered it but a young man, whose hat was tipped for- 
ward over his face, and whose coat collar was tucked up 
around his ears in such a manner as to almost conceal his 
countenance. He also wore a false moustache, which she 
detected instantly. 


142 


A WATCH-KEY. 


“ Do you know me? ” he asked uneasily, 

“Yes; I know you,” answered the girl in a passionless 
voice; “but nobody else would, I think.” 

“ I don’t intend that anybody else shall,” he responded, 
meaningly. “ I am Mr. Cullen, remember, and you are 
registered, I see, as Miss Marvin. That is all right. But 
we can’t talk here. The walls may have ears for aught I 
know. Put on your wraps and let’s take a walk. It is 
not late.” 

The girl obeyed mechanically. She returned to her 
room, shawled and hatted herself, and came back to the 
parlor in the space of a few minutes. - Then they went 
out together into the gusty March night. 

“ Will you take my arm ? ’ he said, when they had left 
the hotel block behind them. 

“ No!” she said, coldly, and then they walked along 
silently for a few minutes. 

“ Where are you carrying me ? It is a bad night for a 
long walk,” she added, suddenly stopping. 

“ I am going to the pavilion. You have been there 
with me before. It is only a stone’s throw from here 
and we will be safe there from interruption.” 

The girl assented by a slight inclination of the head. 

A moment later they had reached the little pavilion 
erected for the accommodation of visitors just above the 
city reservoir. They entered it in silence which was 
unbroken, for the space of a moment, when the young 
man spoke, plunging abruptly in medias res. 

“ Well, I am here in obedience to your commands. 
What will you have me to do ?” 

His whole manner and bearing were saturated, so to 
speak, with insolence, and yet he could be servile enough, 
at certain times and places. Servility and insolence, I 


A WATCH-KEY. 


143 


will state in passing, are extremes of the same arc in 
social ethics. The man who, in certain society, vibrates 
to the one, in certain other society, rebounds as inevita- 
bly to the other. The inanimate pendulurn obeys no 
surer law. 

This woman was in this man’s power and he was inso- 
lent to her in obedience to a law of his being. “What 
will you have me to do?” he repeated mockingly. 

“ What will I have you to do ?” 

The miserable woman raised her great despairing eyes 
to his face and there was a moment of silence, relieved 
only by the rain which had begun to fall heavily and 
which the wind blew in gusts against the sides of the 
little pavilion. Then she repeated in a voice, so hollow 
and unnatural that it made her companion involuntarily 
shudder, those solemn words of the marriage service : 

“ ‘To have and to hold, from this day forward, for better 
for worse, for rirher for poorer, in sickness and in health, 
till death us do part.’ You promised that,” she said, 
her intense eyes burning into his face — “ promised it 
before God, and yet you stand there and ask me what I 
will have you to do !” 

“ Does it occur to you to remember that you have no 
proof of any such promise on my part — that the witnesses 
to our marriage are one dead and the other two emi- 
grated to parts unknown ?” 

“ And you propose to take advantage of those facts 
and repudiate me?” 

The girl’s voice was ominously calm. 

“ Well, if you choose to put it that way. I look at the 
matter thus: our marriage was a mistake ; we are mutu- 
ally tired of it and each other. In some States, the law 
would grant us a divorce on the exclusive plea of incom- 


144 


A WATCH-KEY. 


patibility of temper; but we don’t want the publicity of 
a divorce suit. Neither of us would be benefited by it. 
Why not adjust the matter amicably between ourselves 
and a^ree to part in peace. Together we would be a 
couple of mill-stones, keeping each other down ; apart we 
might each do well. You were luxurious-ly raised — so 
was I. Neither of us is fitted fora life of poverty which 
would inevitably be our portion, should we commit the 
fatuity of attempting to live together. Our relations 
have been clandestine from the first, so nobody will be 
the wiser, should we conclude to quietly annul them. We 
will simply stand, as far as the world is concernd, in statu 
quo. Of course I shall provide for you amply. I pledge 
myself to do that. Well,” as the girl answered him 
never a word, “what have you to say?” 

“ Nothing whatever.” 

“Does that mean that you are going to — to make 
things disagreeable for both of us?” said*the young man 
uneasily. “ It is not your policy to make an enemy of 
me, I can tell you.” 

“ Make an enemy of you !” The girl absolutely laughed. 
“Can Satan be made an enemy of human souls? That 
is what might be called a work of supererrogation, I 
should think.” 

“ So I am the devil — or akin to him — am I ? All the 
more reason why you should interpose no objection to 
the dissolution of our bonds.” 

“ I have interposed none.” 

“ You assent, then, to my proposition ? Come Lydia — 
answer me. I want to come to a definite understanding 
with you. What are your plans ?” 

“The plans of a repudiated wife concern no one but 


A WATCH-KEY. 


145 


herself,” answered the girl, still strangely quiet. “ I see 
no necessity for further prolonging this interview.” 

“ But we can’t get back to the hotel in this down- 
pour — at least, you can’t. I will step out and see if I 
can’t find a cab.” 

Then the soi disant Mr. Cullen raised his umbrella and. 
sallied forth into the very teeth of the storm, calling back 
over his shoulder, as he descended the pavilion steps.” 

“I will return in a few moments. Wait here for me.” 

But his repudiated wife answered him nothing. She 
just crossed the floor of the pavilion and stood staring 
intently down into the rain troubled waters of the reser- 
voir. 

In this attitude he left her. 


7 


146 


A WATCH-KEY. 


CHAPTER XVII. 

“ Happy is the bride that the sun shines on.” 

And Ellen Bragg was happy — beatifically so — as she 
looked out from her chamber-window upon the matchless 
beauty of her wedding-morn. The outdoor world was 
one flood of dazzling sunshine ; the golden baptism rained 
down upon trees, shrubs, houses, people, everything; it 
was one of old March’s jubilee days, upon which he 
relaxes his iron rule and melts into a softness and beauty 
almost April-like. What an auspicious wedding-day, 
with the benediction of Nature resting, like a crown, 
upon it ! 

But the bride-elect was thinking of other things — of the 
probable amount of her betrothed’s inheritance mainly. 
Hers was one of those shallow natures in which it is im- 
possible for a sentiment to take root. There was no world 
for her outside the domain of fact. The great realm of 
poetry and ideality was, to her, a land of fable, and ils 
language unintelligible. She had no tender feelings, on 
the present occasion, as most brides — even the most 
prosaic — have, about the disruption of old ties, the put- 
ting away of old habits and associations and ways of life. 
What bride before ever bade farewell to maidenhood 
without a tender, tearful mental valedictory to the old 
life and the old friends she was leaving forever behind 
her! But this' strange girl thought of none of these 
things. She did not feel the pain of being uprooted and 
transplanted into foreign soil. And what an uprooting 
it is ! How many delicate fibres are torn away and left 
behind in the old soil! And how long it takes the trans- 


A WATCH-KEY. 


147 


planted flower to take root in the new, strange earth, 
however kindly its alimentary conditions! 

“Good morning, Ellen! What a beautiful day you 
have!” said her first bridesmaid, a cousin from North 
Carolina, entering the room. 

“ I was just thinking,” said Ellen, turning to greet the 
incomer, with an unsettled expression of countenance, 
“ whether to wear my coronet of pearls or my orange 
blossom wreath to-night. The veil is already fastened to 
the wreath, but the pearls are lovely, and complete 
the set, and I am in a regular quandary about it.” 

“ Try both,” said her friend, “and wear whichever is 
the most becoming. But here comes your breakfast. Of 
course, you will be invisible below stairs to-day.” 

After breakfast, the final preparations set in, in good 
earnest. Above stairs, Ellen wrestled with the details 
of the wedding toilet, and, below stairs, her mother was 
absorbed, body and soul, in “ the table.” The centre- 
piece was a subject of much thought and consultation. 
Which should it be — an ice-cream pyramid, or one of 
crystallized fruits ? For the life of her, Mrs. Bragg couldn’t 
decide. 

Meanwhile, the little brass-mounted clock in the parlor 
rang out, hour after hour, the last minutes of Ellen 
Bragg’s maidenhood. What a terrible monitor a clock 
is, when we come to think of it ! How remorselessly it 
ticks away the precious minutes of our mortal lives, stop- 
ping neither for love, nor joy, nor sorrow, but ticking on, 
on, on, forever! “One moment less” it seems to say! 
“One — less! One- -less!” 

As the day wore on to evening, the aspect of the 
weather changed ; the wind rose, the thermometer fell, 
and clouds began to gather about the western horizon. 

“ I do hope it won’t rain,” was the exclamation of more 


148 


A WATCH-KEY. 


than one wedding-bound person in Milledgeville, as the 
evening drew near its close. But the persons most nearly 
interested — the bride and her , immediate family — were 
too absorbingly busy to pay much attention to the 
weather. 

The veil with the wreath, and the veil with the pearls, 
were tried on successively ad iufinitnin. 

At last, the pearls carried the day. 

“They are /lis gi[t. You ought, by all means, to wear 
them,” one of the bridesmaids had declared, and so the 
momentous matter was settled. 

Mrs. Bragg had also come to a definite conclusion in 
regard to the centre-piece. Crystallized fruits would be 
something newer than an ice-cream pyramid, she decided. 
Ice-cream pyramids w^re getting so common. Everybody 
had them. 

While subjects of this nature were being debated in the 
home of the bride-elect, matters of much graver import 
were hanging in the balance, at the ancestral homestead 
of the prospective groom. 

Old John Hildegard had been seized with a stroke of 
paralysis about noon, and lay, in extremis, in a darkened 
upper chamber of the sepulchral looking old house which 
had been his own, as well as his nephew's, birthplace. 
There were four doctors with him, and hirelings innumer- 
able, but not one single human soul who loved him. 
Poor old rich man ! with all his dollars, and houses, and 
lands, not one tear, or one caress, or one office of affec- 
tion to smooth his dying pillow! Only the doctors, 
thinking of their fees, and the servants of their spoils, 
and neighbors and acquaintances of the probable “ will.” 
What a death-bed ! 

“Somebody ought to dispatch to young Clarence,” 


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149 


suggested one of the doctors. “ He is his only living 
relative, you know." 

“ Much he cares," responded a brother M. D. “ Besides 
he is to be married to-night, I understand." 

And so nobody sent the dispatch, and the old man 
wrestled alone with that grim assailant who will one day 
close in with us all, and who will be, sooner or later, 
victorious. 

It was a horrible death-bed, but no one seemed to 
think it a very affecting one. The doctors wore their 
professional masks, behind which how much or how little 
of feeling was hidden, it was impossible to say. They 
were doing their duty rigidly, and there was nothing else 
for them to do. As for the servants, they were revelling 
in that atmosphere of repressed excitement and con- 
stantly stimulated curiosity which possesses such an 
attraction for the vulgar mind, and which is inseparable 
from a death or a funeral. Where would he be buried — 
when — how? Who had he left his money to, and would 
there be a sale ? These and like subjects seasoned the 
discourse of the kitchen table, as John Hildegard’s hire- 
lings gathered round it to break his bread and discuss his 
demise. 

The doctors, gathered round the mahogany, above 
stairs, touched upon the same subject, in a more refined 
way. The main theme of interest with them was the 
existence, or non-existence, of a will. 

“The old man would rather have what he leaves burned 
up than for young Clarence to get hold of it," said one 
of them. “ He was telling me of some of the young 
man's escapades — pretty disgraceful ones, too — the last 
time I was called in to him." 

“ But he’ll get it, if there is no will," said another. 


150 


A WATCH-KEY. 


“ Of course. They are the only two left of the family. 
There is no other natural heir.” 

“ He is dead,” said Dr. Hilton, entering the room. He 
was the physician who had been keeping watch at the 
bedside while the others went down to dinner. “ Some 
one ought to take charge of the body at once.” 

Some one did take charge of it. Tw^o of the old man’s 
hired servants performed for him the last sad offices. 
He was duly “ shrouded ” and “laid out ” in the great 
barn of a parlor which had witnessed so many funerals, 
and weddings and christenings, and whose vault-like 
atmosphere struck a chill upon all the living who entered it. 

“Build a fire up in the next room,” said one of the 
company who had come “ to sit up with the body.” “ I 
couldn’t stand this room — would as lief stay all night in 
a graveyard.” 

And so a fire was kindled in the next room and the 
company assembled there. They gathered round the 
broad, old-fashioned hearth, and conversed in the subdued 
way appropriate to such occasions, but no one shed a tear, 
or gave a thought to the poor old man, lying so still and 
cold in his last long sleep. 

Many thoughts were given to his property. A very . 
lively curiosity existed, on all sides, as to the disposition 
he had probably made of that; but no living being thought 
of him, of the man, John Hildegard, called so suddenly, 
at a moment’s notice, to his eternal account — of the hopes, 
fears, passions, sins and sufferings which had gone to 
make up the life of the man now lying so white and still 
upon the sofa-cushions. The very same sofa it was upon 
which his mother had often laid him when he was a baby. 
How strange to think he had ever been a baby ! How 
almost impossible to imagine these shrunken, withered 


A WATCH-KEY. 


151 

features in any other similitude — far less in that of tender, 
dimpled babyhood ! Poor childless, loveless old man ! 
There was no one to place even a flower in his poor cold, 
shrivelled hands. Stark and stiff he lay in his new black 
broadcloth suit, the single one of all his possessions he 
could carry into the grave with him. In life, a man of 
insignificant presence, he had acquired, in death, that 
majesty which the “great change” bestows upon us all. 
There he lay — the seal of eternal silence upon his lips. 
Nevermore were those lips to move in love or anger. 
They had framed their last reproach. They had uttered 
their last kind word. They were silent now forevermore. 
John Hildegard was dead. 

A laconic message to that effect had been finally dis- 
patched to Theodore Clarence at Milledgeville, but, owing 
to some detention on the route, it had not yet been deliv- 
ered when the wedding guests began to assemble in Mrs. 
Bragg’s brilliantly lighted parlor. It was soon full. There 
were new arrivals every moment, until the last guest had 
entered and been seated. Then ensued the low hum of 
conversation usual upon such occasions, and after awhile 
the hush of expectancy which generally precedes the 
advent of the bridal party. 

“ They are coming,” said some one near the door. 

A soft swish of drapery and tread of booted feet down 
the stairway followed close upon this announcement, and 
then a vision of laces, and jewels, and flowers, and trailing 
silks and velvets swept into the room, and paused under 
the great floral bell which depended from, an evergreen 
arch over one of the doors. Under this arch the bride 
and groom halted, and the black-robed minister advanced 
down the aisle of parted groomsmen and bridesmaids 
until he stood directly in front of them. 


152 


A WATCH-KEY. 


The wedding ceremony was a brief one. It was scarcely 
begun before it was ended, and Ellen Bragg was Mrs. 
Theodore Clarence, and was receiving the kisses and con- 
gratulations of her many friends. Everybody was laugh- 
ing and talking and there was a pleasant hubbub gener- 
ally. What a contrast — if they had only known it — to 
the sileyice in that other house, a hundred miles or more 
away. But they did iwt know it, and so the sound of 
singing, and laughter, and gay conversation continued to 
float out upon the still night, which had suddenly grown 
dark and stormy. 

“ Don’t you think it is strange that Marian Everett and 
Tillet Clavering are waiting together,” said one supersti- 
tious lady present. “ I should be afraid something would 
happen to break off the marriage.” 

“ I don’t believe in such nonsense,” answered the lady 
addressed ; “ but isn’t Marian looking lovely to-night?” 

“ She always looks lovely. She is the prettiest girl, by 
far, in Milledgeville.” 

‘‘And Tillet Clavering is, by odds, the handsomest man. 
They will make a superb-looking pair. I wonder if Mrs. 
Everett is any better reconciled to the match than she 
was?” 

“ I never heard that she was opposed to it.” 

“Well, I don’t know that she is absolutely opposed to 
Tillet Clavering, but she doesn’t like Marian’s marrying 
so young.” 

“ She ought to be the last person in the world to say 
anything about that. She married young enough herself.” 

“And looks like an old woman now in the prime of her 
life,” said the lady who had first spoken. “ I wonder 
why she isn’t here to-night ? I see Mr. Everett,” 


A WATCH-KEY. 


153 


“What a fine-looking man he is! He looks younger 
than his wife.” 

“ He will make a dashing widower one of these days.’’ 

“ Why do you say that? Mrs. Everett is not in bad 
health.” 

“You think not? Have you noticed her complexion 
lately? She has that alternate flush and palor that her 
sister Lucy had so long. You remember her, do you 
not ? ” 

“ No ; she died before I came to Milledgeville.” 

“ Sure enough ; I had forgotten it. But here comes 
Mrs. Bragg to invite us in to supper. We will go in 
together, as neither of our husbands are here to-night.” 

We will go in with them and look upon the elegant 
table — the pride of Mrs. Bragg’s heart — all aglitter with 
silver and glass and china, and loaded down with good 
things innumerable. 

Mrs. Bragg didn’t do this kind of a thing very often,- 
but when she did do it, it was done right. Her severest 
censor and critic couldn’t .say otherwise. But there were 
very few censors and critics on the present occasion. 
Everybody was in a very amiable mood, as it was emi- 
nently proper they should be. Mrs. Bragg had put her- 
self to a great deal of trouble to entertain her friends, 
and her friends appreciated the fact and were grateful 
accordingly. They admired the table and the decora- 
tions generally. All were pronounced upon as being in 
“ perfect taste,” and the bride herself came in for a lib- 
eral share of the general commendation. One would 
scarcely have imagined that she was the same girl whose 
husband hunting propensities had been so mercilessly 
ridiculed only a short time since, or that Mrs. Bragg was 
the same lady whose surreptitious economies and trans- 


154 


A WATCH-KEY. 


parent displays had been so contemptuously looked upon 
by the Milledgeville world only such a little while ago. 
The aspect of things had changed wonderfully since the 
advent of Mr. Theodore Clarence and all that he repre- 
sented. There must be something in a girl who could 
secure so rich a prize. So Milledgeville declared, in 
actions, if not in words, and Mrs. Theodore Clarence 
stood upon an altogether different footing from that once 
occupied by Ellen Bragg. 

Mrs. Talons had very little to say about this time. 
She had sense enough to see that she was in a minority. 

The world is proverbially ready to help those who have 
no need of its help, and as Mrs. Bragg had proved herself 
able to do without its assistance, it rallied at once to her 
support. Even Mr. Bragg’s peccadilloes were looked 
upon with a more indulgent eye. He was such a genial 
host and — he was the father-in-law of his son -in law, and 
he was the heir-apparent of untold wealth. Verily, Mill- 
edgeville was no whit behind the rest of the world in its 
worship of the golden calf. What wonder, after all, that 
men sin, and struggle, and barter heaven for the shining, 
glittering ore which represents so much of ease, and corn- 
fort, and worldly respectability ! 

“A telegram for Mr. Clarence,” said a servant, entering 
with the telegram in question. 

The young man was standing over his bride’s chair, 
engaged in an animated discussion with several ladies 
who were seated near her, when the messenger approached 
him. 

“A telegram for me?” he asked, with a paling face. 

For answer the maid handed it to him. 

He turned quite white when he read it. 

“ My uncle is dead,” he said, looking up quietly. “A 


A WATCH-KEY. 


155 


sudden stroke of paralysis,” he added, as a battery of 
wondering eyes was turned upon him. 

There was an immediate movement of departure made 
on the part of all the guests. Everybody understood at 
once that the proper thing to do was to say good-night. 
Accordingly, everybody said it, and went home full of 
curiosity and questionings about the poor old man lying 
dead and uncared for in his ancestral home. 

“The family” left behind were also consumed with a 
burning curiosity to know all the particulars. The tele- 
gram was so meagre — only the fewest possible words : 
“ Your uncle is dead — paralysis.” Mrs. Bragg felt a vague 
uneasiness. She wanted certainty, above all things. What 
if the old man should have left a will diverting a large part 
of his property from the natural channel of descent! Of 
anything like complete disinheritance she never dreamed. 

And Theodore — what his feelings were it would be 
hard to say. “ He has left me nothing if he died con 
scious,” the young man thought within himself. But 
what if he had died 2/;2Conscious ! and the stroke was an 
unexpected one. There was ample room for hope, and, 
consequently, also, for suspense. The young man felt that 
he could not endure this suspense any longer than was 
absolutely necessary. 

“ I must leave for Hanover in the morning,” he said to 
Mrs. Bragg. “ It would not look well for me not to be at 
the funeral.” 

And Mrs. Bragg had agreed with him. 

“ Leave Ellen here with me,” she said sympathetically. 
“ She would only be in your way, and it would not be 
pleasant to her.” 

And so it was arranged that the newly-wedded husband 
should depart alone to attend his uncle’s funeral, ostensibly. 


156 


A WATCH-KEY. 


but in reality to look after that uncle’s effects, and to 
ascertain whether or not he had died intestate. 

Poor old man ! That was the only capacity in which 
he existed in the minds or memories of men — as a prob- 
able testator. 

Milledgeville nearly went wild with conjecture during 
the period of Theodore Clarence’s absence, the bride and 
her mother maintaining a rigid seclusion the while. 
Whether or not “ to go into mourning” was a question 
that was very much perplexing Mrs. Clarence’s brain. 
Would people “expect it of her?” Would Theodore 
himself expect it? And would she have, after all, to 
forego the exhibition of her elegant trousseau? But no 
such calamity was in store for her. Mrs. Bragg reasoned 
quite sensibly that, as Ellen had never seen the old gen- 
tleman, a quiet staying away from all festivities for a 
reasonable period would be all that Society could possibly 
“ expect of her.” Of course, Theodore would wear a 
weed upon his hat, which would be demonstration enough 
for them both. This had been the final decision of the 
family, assembled in solemn conclave. 

What' a hollow farce our whole code of mortuary obser- 
vances and social condolences is ! How we hide our real 
griefs and parade our fictitious ones! How we condole 
with our friends over their imaginary troubles, and turn a 
deaf ear to their real ones ! 

Now, Mrs. Bragg’s life-long martyrdom upon the altar 
of appearances, her more than Spartan fortitude in 
silently enduring the gnawing of the domestic fox that 
had preyed upon her heart for years, had simply been a 
good joke to Society. It had laughed at her painful 
economies and sneered at her conjugal wretchedness ; 
but it now made ample amends for all past deficiencies 


A WATCH-KEY. 


157 


by an overflowing sympathy for this sorrow, which was 
no sorrow at all — this trouble, which was but a trouble in 
name. “It was so sad to have the wedding festivities 
broken in upon this way. And poor Ellen ! She must 
of course be involved by sympathy in her husband’s 
grief. It was -such a pity for her — right in the midst of 
her bridehood, too ! And the young man himself, Mr. 
Theodore Clarence — Society was so overcome at the 
thought of his wretchedness, that it scarcely knew what 
form of condolence to offer as sufficiently indicative of 
its overwhelming sympathies. 


158 


A WATCH-KEY. 


CHAPTER XVIII. 

upon what different scenes does the moon look down ! 
The same moon whicli lighted Ellen Bragg to her bridal — 
which peeped through the cloud-curtains enveloping it 
into the windows, ablaze with light, of the Bragg residence, 
on that memorable wedding-night, looked also down 
through an open window, under which he lay, upon the 
cold dead form of old John Hildegard. Thence it jour- 
neyed a hundred or more miles until its ubiquitous rays 
lighted the streets of the city of Richmond, Virginia; not 
only the streets of the living city were bathed in their 
soft effulgence, but that city of the dead — beautiful Hol- 
lywood — also lay under the clear lunar baptism. The 
marble head-stones gleamed like ghosts in the white moon- 
light which played fantastic tricks with the shadows of 
the evergreens which stood like faithful sentinels above 
those silent sleepers. Not an echo of the great city’s 
din and commotion reached that hallowed spot; the 
moonbeams had it all to themselves — they and the quiet 
dead. In and out among the graves they wandered until 
they reached the city reservoir — the cemetery’s boundary 
line on the southern side. Softly they floated over its 
surface until their silvery rays were obstructed by some- 
thing lying dark and still upon the bosom of the sullen, 
walled-in waters. It was the body of a woman, cold and 
dead in the lustrous moonlight. Next morning “it ” was 
discovered by the keeper in this wise : He was standing 
with a companion upon the reservoir embankment look- 
ing over into the water, when his attention was attracted 


A WATCH-KEY. 


159 


by a piece of cloth, apparently lying upon the surface of 
the water. 

This was a few days after the occurrences related in the 
previous chapter, and the two men were standing upon 
the reservoir embankment, looking into the water. 

“Bill, what is that ?” 

“What? I don’t see anything,” responded the man 
addressed. 

“ Look right there,” said the keeper, pointing with his 
finger towards the strange-looking object. 

“ Why, it’s a rag — looks like.” 

“ Rags don’t generally float — do they ?” 

“ It is curis. Git a stick and see if you can reach it.” 

After a little search for a stick, a broken plank which 
had fallen from the reservoir fence was picked up and 
made to do substitute duty. It just reached the strange- 
looking object. But the “rag” resisted all efforts to 
draw it ashore. 

“ I’m hanged if I understand it,” said the keeper. “The 
thing must be ’witched. I can’t move it.” 

“ Let me try my hand,” said “ BilL” 

“Come ahead, then.” 

“ Great God ! it’s a — it’s a — body," said the man, with 
horror-distended eyes, and dropping the plank which fell 
with a splash into the water. 

“ It must be gotout of there, then,” said the keeper, in 
a shocked voice, “ and we’ll have to have help.” 

Help was not difficult to obtain, when the object for 
which it was required became known. An eager, curious 
crowd was soon around the reservoir, and a few resolute 
workers soon devi.sed means for getting the body on shore. 
It proved to be that of a woman, and the crowd closed 


i6o 


A WATCH-KEY. 


in around it eagerly, when it was laid, for an instant, on 
the reservoir embankment. 

“ it’s a young woman and a pretty one,” said one by- 
stander compassionately. 

“ It couldn’t have been an accident,” said another. 
“ There was the fence. She must have climbed over that.” 

“Suicide, very likely,” said still another. 

Meantime, a rude stretcher was being constructed, upon 
which the body of the poor dead girl was placed and 
carried to the morgue. Search was immediately made 
for some marks of identification, but none could be found. 
There was no name on the clothing or jewelry, or any 
scar upon the person by which it could be described or 
recognized. Only a woman, young, and beautiful. That 
w'as all the description that could be given to the papers, 
but that attracted the attention of the American hotel 
officials. One Miss Marvin had disappeared without warn- 
ing from that hotel, and the description, given in the papers, 
of the dead woman at the morgue, tallied with her ap- 
pearance. The body was inspected by the porter and 
several of the female servants, and identified as that of 
Miss Marvin ; but friends and acquaintances she seemed 
to have none. The body was at last nailed up in a rude 
coffin and orders given for its interment in the pauper 
graveyard ; but just before this had been effected, a “Dis- 
patch” reporter requested the permission of inspecting it. 

“ Done nailed up, sir,” said the man who had just done 
the work. 

“ But, my friend, it is a very easy matter to prize up 
the coffin-lid, for a moment,” said the reporter, exhibiting 
a silver dollar by way of strengthening his logic. 

“I s’pose ’tis,” said the official, relenting; “ so here 


A WATCH-KEY. 


l6l 


goes,” and, with an upward blow or two of his hammer, 
the coffin was laid open. 

The face of the dead girl wore a placid look, but the 
black reservoir mud almost completely covered that and 
the neck. 

“ Wash the face — do,” said the reporter. “ It is a shame 
to bury anything so.” 

The face was accordingly washed, and several wounds 
revealed, thereby, on the temples and neck. 

“ A murder, as sure as you live,” said the reporter, on 
his profesjrional mettle at once. “ Don’t you see these 
wounds! They were made by some heavy, blunt instru- 
ment, beyond a doubt. This poor girl was murdered and 
then thrown into the reservoir. There is no way she 
could have gotten there otherwise.” 

How few people there are who think any subject ! 
A very small minority does the thinking for the whole 
world — about one man in every ten or twenty. The rest 
are merely receptive — human echoes that give back the 
sentiment of the thinking few. 

“ Sure enough,” said the functionary at the morgue to 
the reporter, and “ sure enough ” echoed the world. “ A 
murder to be sure ! How stupid of everybody not to have 
seen it before !” 

The papers were soon full of it — of the story of the 
young and beautiful girl who had been murdered and 
thrown into the Richmond reservoir; but, as yet, no 
friends or relatives appeared to claim either relationship 
or the body. She seemed to have been without friends. 
At last, the Misses Dubarry, of Richmond, whose atten- 
tion had been attracted by the description, in the Rich- 
mond “ Dispatch,” of some article of the dead girl’s wear- 
ing apparel, called and inspected the body. They at once 


i 62 


A WATCH-KEY. 


identified it as that of Florence Lydia Mason, who had 
been a guest of theirs some few mofiths previous. 

This announcement appeared in the next issue of the 
“ Dispatch,” a copy of which Tibet Clavering was reading, 
cigar in hand the while, as he sat upon his aunt’s front 
porch in Milledgeville, a few days after the occurrences 
in Richmond, just related. He had read, in previous 
issues, the account of the body found in the reservoir, 
but, naturally enough, there had been no connection in 
his mind between it and Lydia Mason. What possible 
connection could there be between her and this dead girl, 
found in the reservoir? No one — least of all Tillet — 
thought of her in conjunction with the subject. 

“ It is a very unsatisfactory thing, this attempting to 
read and smoke together,” said Tillet, deliberately laying 
down his cigar. “ One enjoys neither. I believe I will 
try one at a time.” 

Leaning back in his chair, and resting his feet upon 
the banister rail, he gave himself up to a luxurious enjoy- 
ment of the weed and the weather. 

It was a day to be enjoyed, for its own sake— one of 
those lovely spring days, when Nature, waking from her 
winter’s sleep, enchants us with her prodigal beauty. 
The green grass was springing up everywhere; Mrs. 
Golding’s lawn was like a velvet carpet, of brightest 
emerald hue ; the hyacinths, and snowdrops, and golden 
butter-cups were peeping up, on all sides, and lading the 
air with their perfume; the orchards in the distance 
were one mass of feathery bloom — great white and pink 
clouds of blossom, hovering in mid-air; the sky was one 
broad, serene sea of azure, upon which the fleecy baby 
cloudlets floated, in dreamy beauty, and this lovely ver- 
nal picture was supplemented by a chorus of feathered 


A WATCH-KEY. 1 63 

songsters who chirped, and trilled, and twittered, and 
loaded the air with their melody. 

“ The birds are in a perfect ecstasy,” said Mrs. Gold- 
ing, coming to the front door; but a servant claimed her 
attention, just then, and she went in again. 

About this time, Tillet had finished his cigar, and, 
throwing the stump of it away, he took up again the 
newspaper he had been reading. 

“ r wonder if there have been any new developments, 
in regard to that poor girl who was found in the reser- 
voir — if her friends have turned up yet,” he said half 
aloud, as he turned the sheets of the Richmond “ Dis- 
patch.” 

A moment later he sprang from his seat with a smoth- 
ered exclamation. 

“Great God! Tunstall, come here !” he said to his 
brother, who was enjoying a cigar at the other end of the 
porch. 

“ What in the world is the matter? Has a wasp stung 
you?” said Tunstall, knocking the ashes from his cigar, 
and looking up, in amazement, at his brother’s ashen face. 
“Why, Tillet!" he excleimed, frightened in spite of him- 
self, as his brother strode rapidly over the distance be- 
tween them and looked at him searchingly in the eye, 
an expression in his own no living being ever saw there 
before. 

“ Read that,” said Tillet, with shaking hand, pointing 
to a paragraph in the locals of the Richmond “Dispatch” — 
the announcement, before alluded to, of the identity of the 
dead woman, found in the Richmond reservoir, with 
Florence Lydia Mason. 

Tunstall, too, turned quite white, when he read it. He 
dropped the paper as if it had stung him. 

“You were in Richmond that very day,” he said to 


164 A WATCH-KEY. 

Tillet ; “ did you' see anything of her — of Lydia — while 
you were there ?” 

“ Not a thing,” said Tillet, like a man in a dream. “ Qh, 
Tunstall ! It can’t be true. It is too horrible. Lydia 
is at Mrs. Delany’s. She wrote to Aunt Susan — ” 

“Yes, I know,” said Tunstall, with the air of a man 
who has come to a sudden conclusion, “ but I doubt it — 
her being at Mrs. Delany’s.” 

“ What do you mean ?” 

“I mean just this,” said Tunstall slowly, “that, when 
Aunt Susan sent me up country, to look after Lydia, 
last fall, I found that she had got herself into some 
trouble. She told me then that she was married, but 
that she had promised her husband to keep their mar- 
riage a secret tor awhile. 

“ But you said nothing about it at the time.” 

“ Would to God I had spoken — now. It might have 
prevented — this. But she besought me so prayerfully — 
even went on her knees to me and plead with me, like 
one pleading for her life — not to betray her secret — to 
make trouble between herself and her husband.” 

“ It will kill Aunt Susan,” interjected Tillet passion- 
ately. 

“ Yes,” said Tunstall, “ I thought of that, too, and con- 
cluded it would be best to say nothing.” 

“ Who her husband?” said Tillet sternly. “The 
world is not wide enough — ” 

“ I don’t know,” said Tunstall, interrupting him. “ She 
refused obstinately to tell me. There is no locating him, 
either, for Lydia has been everywhere. She was always on 
the wing— now here, then at her father’s, and then 
visiting all over the country. I don’t know whom even 
to suspect.” 


A WATCH-KEY. 


165 

“ My God ! What is to be done about it ? said Tibet, 
passionately crushing the innocent paper which lay upon 
the banister railing, idly fluttering in the gentle breeze. 
“ Somebody will have to tell Aunt Susan — I cavity 

A sense of intolerable shame rushed over the young 
man like a flood. He had never cared particularly for 
his cous-in — there had never been any congeniality between 
them — but she was his cousin, and the miserable notoriety 
of her death reflected upon them all. 

How the world would talk ! he thought, grinding his 
teeth, as he mentally pictured the sweet morsel this lus. 
cious piece of news would prove to the gossips of Mill- 
edgeville. How thev would roll it under their tongues ! 
And she, the object of all this sensation, was a woman of 
his own blood. 

Ah ! if he could only find him — the man who had 
wrought this misery! The young man, usually so gay 
and careless, and easy going of speech and manner, was 
a tiger when he thought of this unknown dastard, who 
had invaded the sanctity of his private life and laid it bare 
to the world’s rude gaze, in the person of this woman of 
his own race and lineage. Alas 1 for Tibet Clavering — 
his besetting sin was pride. Not that vulgar spirit of 
ostentation which so often goes by the name — for the 
young man was singularly frank and unaffected — but that 
deep seated, sensitive, reticent sentiment which builds for 
itself a wall around all that it holds sacred, and keeps the 
world and its coarse famibarity at arm’s length always. 

“ Thank God ! Yonder comes Miss Herbert,” said 
Tunstab Clavering’s voice, breaking in upon a train of 
thought that was becoming intolerable. “ She can break 
it to Aunt Susan better than anybody else, and I suspect 
she has come for that purpose — has. seen the ‘Dispatch.’ ” 


A WATCH-KEY. 


1 66 

Tillet left the porch without a word. He was past ^ 
seeing anybody. If he could, just then, he would have 
built a wall a thousand miles high between him and his 
and the whole world. Other people’s eyes and tongues 
were a torture worse than the Inquisition. He experienced, 
to the full, that sensation, which Mrs. Browning has so 
graphically depicted in one of her poems — the feeling 

“As if one’s heart were set within a glass, 

And everybody stood, all eyes and ears. 

To see and hear it tick.” 


How they would feast over the sickening details — the 
gossips and scandal-mongers of Milledgeville ! How they 
would be bandied about from lip to lip, and how the 
envious and vulgar would pry into the family’s deportment 
under the circumstances ! How eager they would be to 
know how Mrs. Golding was “taking it,” and what “ the 
boys ” said, and so on, without end or limit, or considera- 
tion of delicacy! Tillet Clavering saw and felt it all — 
lived through it, as only the sensitive and imaginative 
can live through anticipated sufferings. 

Meanwhile, Miss Herbert had come forward as far as 
the porch. Tunstall rose to receive her, and both looked, 
involuntarily at the paper, w ich the wind had blown 
partially down the steps. 

“ You have seen it ? ” said the young man, simply. 

“Yes; I have seen it,” said Miss Herbert, and even 
Tibet’s raw and bleeding nerves could have borne the 
gentle dew of sympathy that shone in her e) es. 

Ah 1 Pearl among women ! What language can ade- 
quately describe you ! Dew of Hermon ! Balm of 
Gilead ! She suggested thoughts of them, and of all 
things else pure and .healing. One would never look at 


A WATCH-KEY. 


167 


her without an inspiration of love and admiration. And 
yet, she was so entirely free of self-consciousness ! A 
rose could not have been more unconscious of its own 
exquisite perfume, than was this lovely human flower of 
the beautiful influence she was distilling from her own 
pure life upon the lives of all around her. Her feet 
gravitated naturally to the “house of mourning.” 
Wherever around her there was sorrow, there was to be 
seen, always, her sweet face, 'shining like a star. She knew 
always, by a heavenly intuition, just what to say and 
what 7iot to say. She could touch the rawest wound 
without hurting it, and her tender silence was often more 
eloquent of sympathy than volumes of spoken words. 
She was one of God’s healers, and went about her mission 
like the dew and the sunlight. 

“ Where is Mrs. Golding? ” she said now. 

And Tunstall, without a word, led her into the house. 


A WATCH-KEY. 


1 68 


CHAPTER XIX. 

The news spread, like wild-fire, over Milledgeville. The 
poor dead girl’s name was upon all tongues, before sun- 
down of the day in the morning of w*liich the ill tidings 
had fallen, like a thunderbolt, upon the household which 
had been a second home to her. The excitement upon 
the subject was intense ; nobody talked about anything 
else. A few shook their heads and said “ I told you so,” 
and “just as I expected,” but the majority of the com- 
ments were compassionate. Most of the people, who 
had known and liked the poor unfortunate, remembered, 
now that she was dead, her good qualities rather than 
“ the faults of her.” “And such a pitiful death !” they said. 
Who — oh ! who could the villain be who had thus 
brutally murdered her, if the new’spapers could be 
believed ! Everybody asked everybody else the same 
question, but, as yet, nobody had answered it. As Tun- 
stall had said, the poor girl had been such a bird of pas- 
sage, during her short life, that a large part of it was, 
necessarily, a sealed book, even to those who knew her 
best. 

“ I would give a thousand dollars,” said Mrs. Talons, 
“ to know the man. He ought to be hung as high as 
Haman.” 

This remark was addressed to Mrs. Bragg, who, arrayed 
in full evening toilet, was assisting her daughter to enter- 
tain a room full of callers. The two ladies had just got- 
ten an exhaustive account of the happenings at Mrs. 
Golding’s that morning from that lady’s cook, who was 


A WATCH-KEY. 


i6g 

an intimate of the presiding genius of Mrs. Bragg’s 
kitchen — had interrogated her minutely in regard to 
everything — and so could afford to look calmly incurious 
when Mrs. Talons poured forth her voluble recital. 

“ Somebody ouglit to ferret him out,” continued Mrs. 
Talons, alluding to the unknown reprobate, “/would, 
if Lydia Mason were a kinswoman of mine.” 

Mrs. Bragg coughed significantly, then slowly opened 
and closed the sandal-wood toy of a fan she was holding. 

“ It might not be expedient to do so,” she said quietly. 

“ What do you mean ? ” 

“ Oh ! nothing. I always think the least said upon 
such subjects the better.” This was said with an air of 
which no one but Mrs. Bragg could have been capable — 
an indescribable air of mingled condescension and mild 
reproof. “ It would have been better, perhaps,” she 
added, “ if the poor girl had been restrained a little more.” 

“ Nobody had the authority to restrain her,” said Mrs 
Talons ; “ at least, nobody here. I always thought her a 
nice enough girl myself. She was very popular.” 

“Yes,” said Mrs. Bragg, again opening and shutting 
her fan. “ I had no dislike whatever to Lydia myself, 
but, at the same time, I felt it my duty to discourage 
anything like intimacy between her and Ellen.” 

This was news, indeed, and Mrs. Talons’ eyes gave evi- 
dence of the fact, although the lady herself maintained 
a commendable silence. 

Meanwhile, Mrs. Bragg continued, in the same dignified 
tone : 

“ I think Mrs. Golding w^as very injudicious in allowing 
so much intimacy betw^een Lydia and her nephews.” 

“What nephews?” said Mrs. Talons, in an amazed 
voice. “You don’t mean ‘the boys’?” 


8 


170 


A WATCH-KEY. 


“Tillet and Tunstall Clavering — yes,” said Mrs. Bragg, 
smoothing out the folds of her voluminous silk overskirt. 
“I thought it rather bad taste; but then, I am stricter 
in regard to such matters than most people — have over- 
fastidious ideas, perhaps, about the management of young 
girls, and Ellen is even more particular than I am. I 
often tell Theodore I don’t know how in the world he 
managed to get her.” 

Mrs. Talons mentally reversed the conditions of this 
speech, but was politic enough to say nothing. 

“ I don’t mean to reproach Mrs. Golding,” continued 
Mrs. Bragg, in a condescending tone. “ I dare-say she did 
what she thought was for the best. She. is a most esti- 
mable woman.” 

The air with which this was said was almost too much 
for Mrs. Talons. The good lady turned quite red with 
the effort to suppress her feelings. “ An estimable 
woman, indeed ! ” — this peerless lady, at whose feet Mrs. 
Bragg had been groveling for years. Mrs. Talons made 
a violent effort at self control, and changed the subject of 
conversation. 

“ When do you expect Mr. Clarence back from Han- 
over ? ” she asked. “ I understand that he has gone there 
again.” 

“Yes,” said the gentleman’s mother-in-law, in a tone 
that was patronizingly communicative; “he has gone 
again, and we don’t know when he will be back. Poor 
Theodore ! He is almost overwhelmed with business. 
You can’t imagine the trouble of winding up such an 
estate; and, then, hfe is so bothered about the investment 
of the surplus moneys. Henry and I are anxious, of 
course, for him to invest a good deal here — ” 

“ I have understood that he is going to locate here,” 


A WATCH-KEY. 


171 

interrupted Mrs. Talons, striving heroically to keep her- 
self under, “and I should think it would be very natural 
for him to transfer his property interests here, to some 
extent, at least. I suppose he wis not thinking of prac- 
ticing his profession ? ” 

“ No, indeed,” said Mrs. Bragg, from an ineffably ma- 
jestic height. “ He has no idea of doing anything of 
the kind. There are lawyers enough now in Milledge- 
ville, and Theodore has no need to compete with them. 
The management of his estates will require all of his 
time.” 

“ He is going to build, is he not ? ” 

“ Yes ; and we are all very much perplexed about the 
style and plan of building. Ellen is such a baby that she 
has no ideas upon such a subject, and Theod')re is almost 
equally childish. The whole responsibility is devolving 
upon Henry and myself. He inclines to a Queen Anne 
and I am partial to the Gothic style of architecture. We 
quarrel over it every day.” 

“ You will all live together, I suppose, for a while, at 
least,” remarked Mrs. Talons. 

“ Yes,” said Mrs. Bragg. “ I couldn’t bear the idea of 
our little household band being broken up. How fami- 
lies can divide up and separate from each other so is a 
mystery to me ; but, then, there is so much difference in 
people’s feelings.” 

“ People sometimes have to consult other things than 
‘ feelings ’ in their plans and arrangements for life,” sug- 
gested Mrs. Talons. “Their purses frequently have to 
be taken into consideration.” 

“ I suppose so,” said Mrs. Bragg condescendingly. “ I 
suppose a great many people are restricted in a great 
measure by a want of means. It is sad to think of such 


172. 


A WATCH-KEY. 


necessities. I am quite sure that it would kill Ellen to be 
separated from her father and myself, although Theodore 
treats her as if she were a baby — indulges her every caprice. 
He is a young man of such deep sensibilities,” continued 
his mother-in-law, inhaling, as she spoke, the contents of a 
diamond-studded vinaigrette, her son-in law’s gift. “ His 
grief for his uncle is really touching. The relations 
between them were very tender. They were quite like 
father and son. Theodore’s mother, you know, was poor 
Mr. Hildegard’s only sister. There were only the two 
children. The old gentleman’s devotion to Theodore, 
under the circumstances, was quite natural.” 

“ He left no will, I believe,” said Mrs. Talons. 

“ No,” said Mrs. Bragg, as if the very suggestion of 
such a thing was an impropriety. “ He knew that Theo- 
dore was his legal inheritor. There was no need for him 
to make a will.” 

While this conversation was being carried on between 
Mrs. Bragg and Mrs. Talons, Ellen and her coterie, on 
the other side of the parlor, were volubly discussing the 
sad tragedy so lately enacted in Richmond. Mrs. Bragg 
overheard some of the comments made upon the subject 
of poor Lydia Mason’s sad fate, and rebuked them in her 
stately way. 

“ My dear,” she said to Ellen, I would talk about 
something else if I were in your place. The unfortunate 
girl is dead,” she continued, as if the mention of her 
name were a condescension, “ and you know I do not 
approve of gossip.” 

“I was just saying,” said one of the young ladies, in 
self-justification, “ that I was sorry for Mrs. Golding. She 
was a second mother to Lydia.” 

“Yes, poor woman, I pity her sincerely,” said Mrs. 


A WATCH-KEY. 


173 


very much in the same tone that she would have 
employed if she had been speaking of her washerwoman. 
“ Ellen, where are those lovely stereoscopic views that 
Theodore brought you the other day? Get them, and 
let us look at them.” 

The views were produced and duly admired. 

We, all of us, look at views, and do other things as 
trivial, while other people’s hearts are breaking ; and it 
cannot be otherwise. The world cannot pause in its orbit 
for individual sorrows. They must be individually borne* 
As Thackeray very truthfully puts it, “ No man stays 
awake at night for his wife’s toothache ; ” and our heart- 
aches are in the same category with our toothaches. We 
must bear them alone. Everybody, just now, in Mill- 
edgeville, felt sorry for the poor dead girl, and for “ the 
family ” likewise ; but everybody went to breakfast, and 
dinner, and supper just as usual, and no one stayed awake 
at night by reason of the tragedy. What a tiny ripple 
we, all of us, make when we go down under the water — 
even under the most tragic circumstances! So-and-so is 
dead — poor thing ! say our friends and acquaintances, 
and then they shed a few tears over us, if we have 
deserved them, and then everything swings back into the 
old routine and we are forgotten. Poor, brief, sad, piti- 
ful human life! Surely another world will make amends 
for the deficiencies of this! Who could live on without 
such a hope — without that blessed telescope of faith 
which, even in our lowest valleys of humiliation, commands 
a view of those celestial mansions whose eternal glories 
shall make amends for all the woe and poverty of time ! 
Mr. Ingersoll, and gentlemen of his class, would like to 
take this telescope away from us, but what have they — 
oh! what have they — to offer us in its stead? 


174 


A WATCH-KEY. 


CHAPTER XX. 

A sad trio were gathered around Mrs. Golding’s fire- 
side a few evenings after the day which had been the 
bearer of such woeful tidings to the little home circle — 
Mrs. Golding, Tillet and Tunstall Clavering. 

They sat silently around the hearth, upon which a 
brisk fire was blazing, for the weather had grown sud- 
denly cooler. Nobody was in the mood for talking, for 
there was nothing pleasant to talk about. Mrs. Golding 
had aged wonderfully, as women at her time of life 
always do under great stress of trouble. She looked ten 
years older than she had looked a week previous. Tun- 
stall’s face exhibited less signs of emotion than either his 
aunt’s or Tibet’s, but his was a face very little given to 
the expression of emotions. He was a quiet, self-con- 
tained sort — altogether different from Tillet. 

The sound of the door bell startled them all. 

Few indeed would have been the visitors who would 
have been welcome at this time. 

“ Where is Nancy? ” said Mrs. Golding, looking around 
for the little servant girl who usually a<-tended the bell. 

“ I will go to the door,” said Tunstall, rising. 

“ Don’t ask anyone in here,” said his aunt. “I don’t 
feel as if I could possibly see company.” 

“ I will make your excuses,” said Tunstall, going out 
into the hall. 

A moment later, he had opened the door, to see two 
strange gentlemen standing upon the porch. He spoke 
to them politely, and then waited for them to announce 
their business. 


A WATCH-KEY. 


175 


“Is Lawyer Clavering in?” asked the one who was 
standing nearest. 

“Yes,” said Tunstall. “ Do you want to see him ?” 

“ Yes, we want to see him,” said the same speaker. 

“ Will you walk in ?” said Tunstall, leading the way 
into the sitting-room ; then he suddenly remembered his 
aunt’s injunction, and asked them to be seated in the 
hall. 

“ I will send my brother out to you,” he said, as he 
went forward into the sitting-room. “ Tillet, there are 
two gentlemen here, to see you on business,” he said to 
Tillet, when he had closed the sitting-room door. 

“ I wish people would understand that this is not my 
office,” said Tillet, rising to go out to his supposed clients. 

“ Is this Lawyer Clavering? ” said one of them, rising as 
Tillet entered the hall. Then — when he had answered 
in the affirmative — “ I have a warrant here for your arrest, 
sir, upon the charge of murder.” 

“A warrant for me !" said the young man in unquali- 
fied amazement. 

“ Yes, sir : for the murder of Florence Lydia Mason.” 

Tillet Clavering stood, for a moment, as if transfixed, 
then he regained sufficient command of speech to say : 

“Why, this is ridiculous, Mr. — What is your name. 
Sir r 

“ Evarts.” 

“ Well, Mr, Evarts, what evidence, may I be allowed 
to ask, have you against me ?” 

“ Being a lawyer, sir, you will understand that I am 
not authorized to answer that question.” 

Tillet Clavering wheeled suddenly around and entered 
the sitting-room, the officers of the law, unbidden, fol- 


76 


A WATCH-KEY. 


lowing close at his heels. He went immediately up to 
Mrs. Golding and laid both hands upon her shoulders. 

“ Aunt Susan,” he said, in a voice that strove to be 
calm, “ try and compose yourself, now, and don't be 
alarmed. These two gentlemen ” (pointing towards the 
constables who were standing like sentinels against the 
wall) “ have come here to arrest me for the murder of 
poor Lydia. It is all a ridiculous mistake, of course, 
founded, I suppose, upon the fact that .1 happened to be 
in Richmond the day she was, although I knew nothing 
of her being there at the time. Don’t get frightened 
now, I beseech you,” he continued, as Mrs. Golding 
turned quite white. “ I tell you it is all a mistake, but 
such mistakes will occur sometimes, and there is nothing, 
just now, for me to do but go with the officers. There is 
no necessity for starting before to-morrow — is there?” he 
said, addressing himself haughtily to one of them. 

“ We dislike very much to hurry you,” answered the 
officer addressed, “ but we will have to start at once.” 

Mrs. Golding looked as if she would faint. 

“ You will, at least, wait for supper,” said Tunstall, who 
had not spoken before, but whose face now wore the pal- 
lor of death, and whose lips trembled like those of a man 
in an ague. 

Tibet was the most composed of the family. He was 
intent upon calming Mrs. Golding, and knew there was no 
other way to do it than by being calm and confident him- 
self ; and, in truth, he was confident. The publicity of 
the thing. was all that he thought about or cared for. 
Here would be another item added to the list of sensa- 
tions upon which Milledgeville had been feasting for days, 
and the thought was intensely aggravating to him. He 
would furnish them very little food, on his part, for their 


A WATCH-KEY. 


177 


feast of gossip, he determined within himself, and, so 
determining, turned, with an air of careless indifference, to 
the ofificers, and said : 

“ Be seated, gentlemen, until supper is ready. I sup- 
pose I may be allowed to make a few changes in my 
toilet before starting?” 

“ Certainly,” answered the officer who had introduced 
himself as Evarts, and who seemed anxious to be as 
considerate as possible. “ Certainly, Mr. Clavering, you 
may make^any alterations in your dress that you choose.” 

He looked, as he spoke, at his brother officer, whose 
gaze followed his and rested meaningly upon a piece of 
broken watch-chain which dangled carelessly from 1 illet 
Clavering’s vest front. The two followed their prisoner, 
when he left the room, to make the alterations alluded 
to in his toilet. They stood outside the door of his cham- 
ber, as he exchanged a light spring suit of clothing for 
one more adapted to the weather. The piece of broken 
chain caught in his coat as he was removing it. 

“ I might as well take this off,” he said to himself, 
detaching, as he spoke, the pendent piece from the other 
and unbroken portion of his watch-chain. “ I shall lose 
it, else, and the key is off, anyway.” 

Then he laid the broken piece of chain and the key 
which was usually attached to it, but which chanced, at 
the time, to be (/^tached, upon a table near the window, 
calling his brother’s attention to the fact as he did so. 

“Take charge of them, Tunstall, ’ he said, and Tun- 
stall, who was too full for speech, merely inclined his 
head by way of assent. 

Then the two brothers and the two officers descended 
the stairs and the supper-bell sounded simultaneously. 

The officers exchanged glances as Tillet Clavering 


178 


A WATCH-KEY, 


came into the full light of the hall chandelier and they 
perceived that the piece of pendent chain was missing. 
Then they went in to the supper for which nobody had 
any appetite, and which was accordingly soon dispatched. 
Then a motion was made of departure. 

“We dislike very much to hurry you, Mr. Clavering,” 
said one of his custodians politely, “ but we will have to 
be going.” 

“ No, Tunstall, you must stay here with Aunt Susan,” 
said Tillet in an undertone to his brother, who was pre- 
paring to accompany him. “ If you want to serve me, do 
that.” And Tunstall, who. seemed too stunned to think 
for himself, acquiesced. 

“Don’t worry, now,” said Tillet, going up to his aunt 
for farewell, and too proud to make much exhibition of 
feeling before his captors. “ I will be back in a few days 
all right.” 

Mrs. Golding wound both arms around her boy’s 
neck — she was too full for speech — ^and kissed him good- 
bye. Then Tillet Clavering wrung his brother’s hand, and 
went out, in the darkness of the March night, to the im- 
placable doom that awaited him. 

The details of his trip, until he arrived at Richmond, 
are scarcely worth relating, as they were without point or 
incident. The officers were invariably courteous and 
treated him as the gentleman he was, rather than as a 
prisoner, but when they appeared with him upon the 
streets of Richmond, Tillet Clavering experienced a fore- 
taste of the doom in store for him. A vociferous, hoot- 
ing, yelling, shouting, demoniac crowd of boys, and roughs 
of all ages and sexes, followed him down Main .street to 
the room of the public building in which was held the 
preliminary examination. Its result is widely known. 


A WATCH-KEY. 


179 


A true bill was found against him and he was denied 
bail. He slept that night, for the first time, in Richmond 
jail — the proud, the refined, the sensitive Tillet Clavering. 

The main point of evidence against him seemed to be 
the absence of his gold watch-key (he had a number of 
steel ones in his pocket), taken in connection with the fact 
that a watch-key had been found, by some boys, near the 
reservoir, a day or two after the finding of the body of 
Lydia Mason therein. And this key chanced to fit Tillet 
Clavering’s watch. His own gold key (left on the table 
at home) had never fitted it — had been worn simply as 
an ornament. It had been a gift from his aunt and the 
property of her dead husband ; but these facts transpired 
subsequently. Meantime, popular indignation ran up to 
fever heat. Tillet Clavering was convicted, in the pub- 
lic mind, before ever he was tried. The newspapers. 
North and South, vied with each other in abusing him. 
He was a “ fiend,” a “ devil incarnate,” a “ monster in 
human form.” The whole vocabulary of denunciation 
was exhausted in finding epithets to hurl upon him. 
Brave indeed would have been a jury who could have 
brought in, in the face of such a public sentiment, a ver- 
dict of “not guilty.” One isolated man, here and there, 
might perhaps be found with the requisite amount of 
moral courage to act out his convictions, at such a time, 
but twelve — never. The millennium will have to super- 
vene before such a state of affairs can be — before twelve 
heroes can be easily convened in any one court-room. 
There was one hero* — immortal honor to his name ! — who 
was brave enough, later on, to throw the full strength 
of his name and influence into the balance of justice 


* Judge Hinton. 


i8o 


A watch-key. 


against the wild, tigerish, bloodthirsty mob that was tug- 
ging at the other end of the scales. But what is one man — 
though he be a hero — at odds with a thousand? The 
majority rules always. 

populi, vox Dei P' It had better been written 
vox diabolic for it is oftener thus. It was ''vox populi'" 
that crucified our Lord. It was "vox popiili" that inun- 
dated France with gore, in the days of the French Revo- 
lution, and which will, at no distant day, subject our own 
“great and glorious republic” to the same sanguinary 
baptism, if its exactions be not restrained. Unstable 
indeed is the government which is built upon no surer 
foundations than “ vox popiiliP 

But I am anticipating, and must go back. 


A WATCH-KEY. 


8 


CHAPTER XXI. 

“ Sibyl, come here,” said Mr. Everett, calling his wife 
out from the sitting-room, in which the family were 
assembled, into the hall. Its chandelier had just been 
lighted, and under it the husband and wife soon faced 
each other — she, with a look of interrogation upon her 
countenance; he, with the pallor of death upon his. 

“George! What is the matter!” said Mrs. Everett, 
her sensitive nerves taking the alarm at once that obtuser 
ones might have felt at such an expression upon such a 
face. It took a great deal to throw this man off his men- 
tal equilibrium, and his wife knew it. What could have 
happened to make him look like that ! Mrs. Everett put 
her hand to her heart with a quick, nervous gesture, which 
did not escape her husband’s notice, preoccupied as he 
was. 

“For God’s sake, don’t give way now!” he said, more 
roughly than he often spoke to her. “ There is enough 
trouble without that. Til — ” 

“What trouble?” said Mrs. Everett, the blood all 
gathering around her heart, yet curiously conscious the 
while of her husband’s mental attitude of criticism towards 
her. “ He is expecting nothing of me, as usual,” she 
thought. “What trouble?” she repeated in a faltering 
voice. 

“Tillet Clavering has been arrested for the murder of 
Lydia Mason.” 

Mr. Everett discharged the ill tidings at his wife as he 
might the contents of a pistol. The perspiration stood 
in great beads upon his forehead, as he stood and looked 


82 


A WATCH-KEY. 


at her, uirder the brilliant light of the gently-swaying 
chandelier. 

“ You must not faint. My God ! have some self-con- 
trol about you !” he exclaimed, nearly beside himself, as 
he saw the awful change which came over his wife’s face. 

“ Marian !” she whispered, a look in her eyes that he 
never forgot. 

“Yes, Marian,” said Mr. Everett desperately. “You must 
tell her. Somebody must. She will be obliged to know 
it. For God’s sake, Sibyl, do something ! Don’t stand 
staring like that.” 

“ Tibby!” A voice, gentler than the south wind, came 
to the ears of husband and wife. 

“ Thank God ! here is Marian,” said Mr. Everett, going 
forward, with an expression of unspeakable relief upon 
his countenance, to meet his sister-in-law, who had just 
come in at the front door. “Take charge of them, 
Marian — of mother and daughter both. I don’t know 
what to do.” 

Miss Herbert scarcely heard him. She had seen the 
awful gray pallor of her sister’s face. 

“ My darling, you must not give way, for Marian’s 
sake,” she said, putting both tender arms around this 
sister of her love. 

“Just what I was telling her,” said Mr. Everett, who, 
now that he had shifted the responsibility of affairs upon 
somebody else, was a little more at his ease. 

“Marian,” said Mrs. Everett, looking into her sister’s 
face and seemingly incapable of articulating any but the 
one word. 

“Yes, Marian — you must keep up for her sake,” said 
Miss Herbert, frightened at the expression of her sister’s 
face. 


A WATCH-KEY. 


183 


Then she drew that sister gently with her into an ad- 
joining room. 

“ Send Marian here to us,” she said to her brother in- 
law. “Tell her that I want to see her.” 

“What is it, auntie?” said Marian’s clear, sweet voice, 
as its owner came forward, a moment later, into the room 
upon whose hearth-rug her aunt and mother were stand- 
ing still clasped in each other’s arms. 

The girl paused upon the threshold, the light all dying 
out of her eyes, the color from her face. That terrible 
feeling which the French call serrement du coeur^ and for 
which there is no adequate English expression, seized 
upon her, as she looked upon the two standing so 
strangely thus. Something had happetied. Instinct told 
her that much. 

With a low cry, Mrs. Everett broke from her sister’s 
arms and ran up to her child. 

“ Be brave, Marian,” said Miss Herbert, following and 
putting her arms around both mother and daughter. 
“ There has been some mistake, as often happens in 
such cases, and Tillet Clavering has been arrested and 
carried to Richmond.” 

“Arrested!” The girl’s lips framed the word, but it 
was inaudible. 

“ Yes — arrested for the murder of Lydia Mason,” said 
Miss Herbert, who knew it was best to tell all that had to 
be told at once. “ It is all a mistake, you understand,” 
she went on eagerly. “ He will be back again in a day 
or two.” 

Mrs. Everett’s eyes were absolutely devouring her 
daughter’s face. The change she had seen in her dreams — 
that she had so prayed and fought against — was there. 
It would never again be the same glad, joyous face. 


84 


A WATCH-KEY. 


“Marian/' she said desperately, “it will all be right 
in the end — don’t mind.” 

“ It is all a mistake,” repeated Miss Herbert. She 
could think of nothing else to say. 

“ When was he — ?” 

“ Carried away ?” said Miss Herbert quickly. “ About 
an hour ago. I had just heard it when I came. He will 
be back again, dear, in a day or two, at furthest, and we 
will all — ” 

“ He will never be back !” cried the girl in a strange, 
prophetic voice. “Oh! my love I Tibet ! Tibet ! Why 
didn’t I tell him that I loved him when he begged me so ! 
And I do — I do ! Oh ! Tibet ! Tibet !” 

“ My darling, this will not do. Marian ! Sibyl !” 

“ Let me go to Mrs. Golding,” said the poor child. 
“ She loves him next best.” 

“ It is raining, Marian,” said her aunt. 

“ He is out in the rain,” said Marian, breaking into a 
wild burst of sobs. “I don’t want to fare better than he.” 

Miss Herbert made no effort to check the violent 
weeping. She knew it was Nature’s safety-valve. When 
it had somewhat 'subsided, the poor child lifted up her 
quivering face and said : 

“ Do let me go to Mrs. Golding. I want to know all 
about it. The suspense is more than I can bear.” 

“ Marian,” said the poor mother, kneeling upon the 
hearth-rug at her child’s feet, and drawing that child’s 
head down upon her shoulder, “ why do you want to 
go to Mrs. Golding’s? Your poor mother loves you bet- 
ter than any one else in the world.” 

“ Not better than he does. Oh ! Tibet! Tibet!” the 
poor child broke out afre.sh. “ Let me go. Oh ! do let 


A WATCH-KEY. 


185 


me go!" she pleaded. “It is only a little way — just 
across the street." 

At last her entreaties prevailed. 

Miss Herbert accompanied her to the front gate, with a 
lantern, and watched her till she had entered Mrs. Gold- 
ing’s yard. 

That lady and Tunstall Clavering were sitting, in sor- 
rowful silence, before the fire, when Marian burst, like an 
apparition, into the room, having entered it by the sitting- 
room front door, which opened upon the porch. 

The old lady received her literally with open arms. 

The two stood weeping in each other’s arms for the 
space of a minute, during which Tunstall quietly left the 
room ; then Mrs. Golding motioned the girl to a seat, 
taking one at the same time herself. 

“Tunstall doesn’t think there can be any danger," she 
said, making an effort to wipe away her tears ; “ but the 
suspense is terrible to me, and, I know, to you. I have 
loved him," the old lady went on, “ ever since he was a 
baby, almost as if he were my own child. I took him, as 
you know, when he was a little boy, and he was so mis- 
chievous." The old lady smiled, through her tears, at 
the reminiscences evoked by her words. “ He could 
devise more plans for getting into mischief than any 
child I ever saw in my life, but it was a matter impossible 
to be angry with him. He could disarm one with a 
glance. Tunstall was a great deal better child — less mis- 
chievous, that is — but I never loved him so well. But, 
with all his mischief, Tillet always had the tenderest heart 
in the world. Once, when he was quite a little child, he 
went into paroxysms of grief over the butchering of a 
cow. I wouldn’t have had him to see it for the world, 
but he did, and I never saw a grown person suffer more, 


A WATCH-^KEY. 


I 86 

mentally, over the death of a human being, than he did 
over the death of that poor dumb brute. It seemed to 
haunt him — the manner of it, particularly.” 

“ When do you think he will be back ? ” said Marian, in 
a faltering voice. 

“ In a few days, I hope. Oh ! it can’t be possible that 
God will let any harm come to my poor boy! Tunstall 
thinks that he will be discharged at once after the pre- 
liminary examination. There is no evidence against him. 
He just happened to be in Richmond at the same time 
poor Lydia was ; and I suppose they would take up any- 
body now on a very slight suspicion, in order to be sure 
of getting the real criminal. I wouldn’t be surprised if 
there had been other arrests. But, oh ! my dear, you 
don’t know how hard it was for me to see my poor boy 
led away — ” 

Here the poor old lady burst into tears and Marian 
wept in concert. 

“ Did I ever show you his picture, taken when he was 
a child ? ” said the old lady, at last drying her tears. 

Then, as Marian answered in the negative, she unlocked 
a small Japanese cabinet that stood against the wall and 
drew from it a small painting on ivory, which she took 
from its case and handed to her. 

“ It is just like him,” she said, “ at that age.” 

“ It is just like him now,” said Marian, gazing through 
her tears upon the bright, mischievous face laughing up 
at her from its oval frame. “I have seen him look just 
like that often. He has those same laughing eyes now.” 

In her heart she longed to kiss them, but an instinct of 
maidenly reserve restrained her before his aunt. 

“ This is why I love him so.” said Mrs. Golding, placing 
another picture, taken from the same cabinet, in the girl’s 


A WATCH-KEY. 


tS; 

hand. “ Don’t you see the likeness between the two ? 
Tillet came to me when my heart was broken — right after 
the death of my husband — and he was marvelously like 
our one child who died when he was a little boy. I felt 
just as if God had sent him back to me in my widow- 
hood when he sent Tillet.” 

Marian looked earnestly upon the face, which was 
indeed like Tibet’s, and which had been dust and ashes 
for thirty years. 

“ I thought my heart would break when he died,” the 
old lady said simply, “ and I never was quite comforted 
until Tillet came to me. I thought once that I could 
never let any other child touch anything that had been 
his. I had all his little books and playthings locked up 
where nobody could get at them, but I finally let Tillet 
have a great many of them, and they are associated as 
much now with the one as with the other. I could never 
bear Tunstall to have them, or any other child but Tillet. 
He was so like my Tillet ; was named for him, too. Here 
is a ball,” went on the old lady, taking one from an inner 
drawer of the cabinet, “ that they both played with. 
You may have it, my dear, when I am dead. I couldn’t 
bear for it to fall into hands that wouldn’t prize it.” 

While this conversation was going on between the two 
women who loved Tillet Clavering best. Miss Herbert 
was exerting all her influence toward quieting the Everett 
household. She had alternately coaxed, entreated and 
argued Mrs. Everett into bed, and had finally prevailed 
upon her to take a heavy dose of morphia, under the 
influence of which potion she was now sleeping fitfully. 
Miss Herbert next turned her attention to the children, 
who were in a general uproar — gave them their suppers 
and put them to bed. No easy task, this, at the best of 


A WATCH-KEY. 


1 88 

times, but underthe influence of the spirit of excitement 
which now pervaded the entire household, it was little 
less than than a herculean job. 

“You are our good genius, Marian,” said Mr. Everett 
gratefully. “ What we should have done to-night without 
you I don’t know.” 

“ I wish you would come in and feel Sibyl’s pulse,” she 
said to him anxiously. “ It is very high, it seems to me.” 

“ She has just allowed herself to get excited over this 
affair,” said Mr. Everett, but he followed his sister-in-law, 
nevertheless, into the room in which his wife lay sleeping 
with a crimson flush upon her cheeks, which made her 
look ten years younger than she ordinarily did. 

“ She is looking unusually well, I think,” said her 
husband. 

“ Yes ; but feel her pulse.” 

Mr. Everett laid his finger upon the slender wrist. 
The blood was bounding through it like a runaway 
courser. Mrs. Everett moved uneasily, and murmured 
something in her sleep, of which the only coherent word 
was “ Marian.” 

“She thinks of nothing in the world but Marian,” said 
Marian’s father. “By the way, isn’t it time she was 
coming home ? ” 

“ There is no hurry about it,” said Mi.ss Herbert, still 
uneasy about her sister. “ Marian is in good hands.” 

“ I shouldn’t have allowed her to go out to night, 
though, if I had been consulted about it,” said Mr. Ever- 
ett. “I am sorry now that Marian is engaged to Tillet 
Clavering. The young man himself is well enough — this 
arrest, I don’t think, will amount to anything but an 
examination and a discharge — but, then, the publicity of 


A WATCH-KEY. 


189 


the whole matter of Lydia Mason’s death, and all — I 
don’t like it at all." 

“ But that is not Tibet’s fault.’’ 

“No; it is not his fault, but it is very disagreeable to 
be mixed up with happenings of that sort. You can’t 
imagine how I felt this evening when I first heard the 
story of Tibet’s arrest. I never had anything to shock 
me so in my life. I would rather have faced a battery 
than to have come up home with the news to Sibyl and 
Marian. What we should have done here to-night with- 
out you, I can’t imagine. But I am going for Marian. 
Look after things, please, till I get back." 

Mr. Everett went out into the windy March night with 
feelings very different from the complacent ones in which 
he was in the habit of indulging. Here was an unex- 
pected tangle in the skein of life, which, for years, had 
been running so smoothly with him. His daughter’s 
engagement, which, until now, had seemed to him such an 
altogether desirable arrangement, was beginning to 
assume an entirely different aspect. Lydia Mason’s 
strange death and this public arrest were factors which 
had never entered into his calculation when he had con- 
gratulated himself upon Marian’s judicious choice — 
when he had added up in his mind the items which, all 
told, constituted his idea of a good match. And Marian 
was intrinsically quite capable of making a good match 
yet. She was beautiful, she was intelligent, and she was 
web born. Why shouldn’t these marketable attributes 
be made to bring their full equivalent in the matrimonial 
barter ? Mr. Everett didn’t sum up the situation in these 
identical words, but he reached the same conclusion by a 
little different mental route. It was eminently right and 
proper, he reasoned, for every girl “ to do the best she 


190 


A WATCH-KEY. 


could for herself ” in the world, and a woman had but one 
world — that of possible matrimony. The outer darkness 
of old maidism didn’t count. Mr. Everett wanted his 
daughter to marry and to marry well. Was she about to 
do this, or not ? The matter certainly deserved investi- 
gation, and Mr. Everett determined to investigate it at 
Ids earliest convenience, and if Tillet Clavering’s worldly 
prospects didn’t brighten considerably, Mr. Everett deter- 
mined, within himself, to decline the honor of that gen- 
tleman’s alliance with his only daughter. Of the extent 
to which that daughter’s affections might very naturally 
be involved in the matter, considering the fact that she 
was on the very eve of marriage with this young man, 
Mr. Everett didn’t stop to consider. If you had suggested 
such an idea to him, he would have regarded it as quite 
ridiculous. Affections ! Pshaw ! There were other and 
more important subjects to be considered in the question 
of a girl’s settlement in life. Affections would do well 
enough to fill up an otherwise full balance — thrown in for 
good measure — but as a separate and independent con- 
sideration, Mr. Everett quite scorned the idea of such a 
thing. 

Meantime, he had so far forgotten himself and what 
he had come out for, as to have stood, for a moment, lost 
in contemplation, at Mrs. Golding’s gate. It was not often 
that Mr. Everett “lost himself” that way. He was a 
man who generally knew his bearings pretty well. He 
started suddenly forward now^ and walked rapidly up to 
Mrs. Golding’s front door. 

Marian herself answered the bell. 

“ I knew it was some one for me,” she said, going out 
into the darkness to her father. “ Good night. Mr. Clav- 


A WATCH-KEY. 


I9I 

ering,” she said to Tunstall, who had accompanied her to 
the door. 

“ Good night,” said Tunstall, and then he proceeded to 
fasten up the house. 

After the last key was turned, the last bolt in its place, 
he went slowly up to the room he had always occupied 
with his brother. He felt cowardly about entering it, and 
then he nerved himself and went forward. The first 
thing he saw, after putting down his lamp, was the suit 
Tibet had discarded before leaving, and thrown carelessly 
over the back of a chair. It was more than he could 
bear, quiet, self contained man though he was. He sat 
down in the nearest chair and burst into womanish tears. 
It takes just such things to unnerve us all. A glove, a 
slipper, a forgotten ornament — what a world of asso- 
ciations they can suddenly evoke! What images they 
call up from the deeps of memory — images oftlimes of 
unspeakable pain. 

Tunstall roused himself, after a minute — he was a man 
not in the habit of giving way to his feelings — and then 
his attention was attracted by the watch key and piece of 
broken chain, lying, where Tibet had placed them, on the 
table. He took them up mechanically and put them in 
his own watch fob which hung beside the bureau. Then 
he retired for the night, and darkness settled down upon 
the house which had, that day, been the opening scene 
of a tragedy. 


92 


A WATCH-KEY. 


CHAPTER XXII. 

Milledgeville was in a ferment of excitement. Tillet 
Clavering’s arrest, following close upon the footsteps of 
Lydia Mason’s suicide or murder, convulsed it to its very 
centre with horror. What would happen next ? Mill- 
edgeviHe was quite prepared for anything, even to believe 
in Tillet Clavering’s guilt, which seemed, at first, such a 
preposterous idea. Somebody was guilty, and some sort 
of an expiatory sacrifice had to be made to appease 
Popular Sentiment. It demanded a victim. And, then, 
the evidence, as even Mr. Everett admitted, as close as 
was his relationship to the family, was very strong against 
“ the accused ” as the newspapers called Tillet Clavering. 
When examined, his watch-key was missing, and a watch- 
key had been found near the reservoir, a few days after 
the tragedy, which fitted his watch. It is true, Tibet’s 
own watch-key had been subsequently produced, and 
testified to, by his aunt and brother, but they were his 
aunt and brother, and that key did 7iot fit his watch. 
And, then, a note had been found at the office of the 
American Hotel and attributed to “ Miss Marvin,” whose 
identity with Lydia Mason had been proven, addressed to 
T. J. somebody. The clerk had been unable to make out 
the address, and had, therefore, thrown it into the waste- 
basket, from which it had been rescued and worked upon 
by the detectives until they had succeeded in spelling 
T. J. Clavering out of it. That they, the detectives, 
were interested parties — interested in “ working up the 
case,” and thereby earning for themselves professional 
laurels — never seemed to occur to anybody. Their testi- 


A WATCH-KEY. 


193 


mony, upon all subjects, was unquestioningly taken, just 
as that of Mrs. Golding and Tunstall Clavering was un- 
questioningly rejected, in consequence of their relation- 
ship to the prisoner. The irreproachable characters of 
both availed them nothing, under the circumstances. 
They were brought in guilty of “ interested motives.” 
The detectives, of course, were purely disinterested wit- 
nesses in a matter that closely concerned their pecuniary 
and professional interests. This was a sample of the 
justice which was meted out to Tillet Clavering. Mean- 
time, the weary days dragged their slow length along to 
the lonely prisoner in his cell and the breaking hearts 
at home. 

The prisoner’s deportment, under the exquisitely hu- 
miliating circumstances, was characterized, by the news- 
papers, as indicative of a perfectly callous conscience. 
He exhibited neither grief nor remorse ! “ What a hard- 
ened criminal !” said Public Sentiment, still further 
strengthened in its opinion — if that was susceptible of 
being strengthened — that he should hang. The vulgar, 
curious herd visited him daily. His every speech, look, 
movement, was seized upon by the reporters and served up, 
with sensational condiments, to a ravenous, voracious pub- 
lic. Tillet Clavering had no private life, save such as existed 
in the depths of his unspoken thoughts. Those he did 
keep sacred. Neither taunts, nor misrepresentations, nor 
imputations of callousness, availed to break through the 
impenetrable reserve in which the doomed man wrapped 
himself, as in a mantle, and which he kept ever between 
his sacred inner life and the Goths and Vandals who 
would fain have desecrated it. The name of his betrothed 
never once passed his lips. 

“Tell^^r to keep quiet,” he said once to Tunstall, 

9 


194 


A WATCH-KEY. 


“ for my sake. I couldn’t bear to see her name in the 
papers.” 

And what of “her,” during this season of woeful sus- 
pense? How had the tender hot-house plant fared, in 
the fierce tornado which had swept down upon it, in a 
moment of time, from an absolutely cloudless sky ? How 
do all tenderly-nurtured plants fare when suddenly ex- 
posed to the merciless elements ? 

Poor Marian ! She had a complication of troubles 
about this time. In addition to the anguish of Tibet’s 
prolonged imprisonment, was her mother’s desperate ill- 
ness. Her heart was a pendulum between these two sor- 
rows — poor young, untried, sensitive heart, lately so full 
of gladness, and now so full of anguish unutterable! 
There was scarcely a trace of likeness to the Marian 
Everett who first stepped into this story to be found in 
the girl who now sat beside her mother’s bedside in the 
dying twilight of a mournful rainy day. There were 
great dark circles under the strangely-luminous eyes, and 
the figure had wasted away, even to emaciation. There 
was not a particle of color about her, save such as ling- 
ered in the blue of the eyes and the glint of the golden 
hair. She looked worse — far worse — than the mother, 
who lay, with crimson cheeks and eyes unnaturally bright, 
against the white pillows of the bed in which she had 
lain so long — since the night Miss Herbert had placed 
her there. 

The whole household was in the direst confusion on 
this particular evening. Miss Herbert, a few .days pre- 
vious, had been called home by the sudden and danger- 
ous illness of her mother, and could now only run in oc- 
casionally and look upon the sister who v/as passing so 
rapidly away. She knew it, but no one else did. The 


A WATCH-KEY. 


195 


doctor was non-committal. He had seen worse cases 
recover, he said, and that was all that could be got out 
of him. 

Meantime, children, servants, and housekeeping gener- 
ally fared in the way they usually do when the mistress 
of the house is practically absent. Mr. Everett began to 
appreciate the fact that the piece of machinery he called 
his wife was a more necessary cog than he thought it 
was. He had hitherto entertained the idea, so prevalent 
among men, that housekeeping was a sort of clock-work 
mechanism which, once properly wound up, ran itself — 
that breakfast, dinner and supper transpired, in the course 
of the day’s events, by a sort of natural law of domestic 
economy. Of the importance of the motive power be- 
hind it all, that kept the machinery in motion, he had 
had a very vague idea indeed ; but his perceptions upon 
such subjects were being momently brightened. The 
general friction which had now superseded the usual order 
of things domestic was removing the rust from more 
than one of his life-long opinions. Itse'emed impossible, 
for one thing, to get anything to eat in the house. With 
a full larder and a complete corps of servants, meals were 
never ready ; and nothing disturbs a man like irregularity 
of meals. You may bury his fondest hopes, if you must, 
but give him his dinner. He wants it under all circum- 
stances. Now, women stop eating when they are in 
trouble. It is a distinguishing peculiarity of the sex. 

“ Are we to have any supper to-night, Marian?” said 
Mr. Everett, coming into the room and lingering, for a 
moment, to look upon his wife’s fever-flushed face. 

“ I will see about it, papa,” said the poor child, rising 
mechanically and leaving the room. “ How can he eat 
now?'' she thought. 


196 


A WATCH-KEY. 


She had eaten practically nothing, herself, for weeks — 
only a cracker or an occasional cup of tea between 
times — and she was wasted to a skeleton in consequence. 

“Marian, I am hungry!” wailed Johnnie, aged seven, 
as his sister passed him in the hall. 

“ I’m sleepy. I want to go to bed,” said the next lit- 
tle stairstep. 

“ Mr. Everett, I wish you would come here to these 
children — I just can’t manage’em,” said the nurse, throw- 
ing open the door of the sick-room to enter complaint 
against James and Charlie, who were fighting in the back 
porch. 

Mr. Everett stumbled over three inverted chairs, on 
his way out to settle the difficulty. 

“ Nancy, are you out of oil, or have you concluded to 
do without lights T' he said, with a supreme effort after 
patience, as he uprighted himself for the third and last 
time. 

“ Lamps ain’t been filled up,” said Nancy sullenly. “ I 
can’t do everything.” 

“Well, fill them up — do that one thing now,” he said, 
stepping, as he spoke, in the darkness, upon the tail of the 
children’s pet cat, which proceeding evoked a feline squall 
of such auricular proportions as pretty nearly made Mr. 
Everett lapse into profanity. 

These absurd little comedies I How they mingle with 
the direst tragedies of daily living, until we scarcely 
know whether to set down this strange, complex, contra- 
dictory life as a tragedy or a farce. 

Mr. Everett parted the belligerents, and Marian, mean- 
while, succeeded in getting something put upon the 
table. 

“ Supper is ready, papa,” she said at last, and Mr. 


A WATCH-KEY. 


197 


Everett, no wise loth, turned his steps in the direction of 
the dining-room, leaving her in charge of the sick-room. 
She was ignorant of the fact that Tillet Clavering’s trial 
had begun and was nearing its close. Nothing in the 
shape of a newspaper was allowed to come into the 
house — Mr. Everett had stopped all his subscriptions — 
and she dared not ask any questions. The chances are 
that they would not .have been answered truthfully, if 
she had. Tunstall Clavering gave her all the news from 
Richmond that she received at all, and an embargo was 
laid upon his tongue. 

“ Tell her nothing that will disturb her,” Tillet had said 
to him. “ Especially keep her in ignorance of the time 
of the trial. She must not be dragged through that 
ordeal.” 

The lovers could only send each other verbal messages. 
All epistolary correspondence was “ inspected,” and Til- 
let Clavering would rather have been hung ten times 
over than to have had the name of the woman he loved 
bandied about, from lip to lip, and flaunted abroad in the 
newspapers. The messages he sent to her were few, but 
those that she sent to him were many and tender. 

“ Tell him,” she said to Tunstall, all wall of reserve 
broken down, “that I love him with all my heart, that I 
always have loved and always shall love him, and that I 
am ready to marry him at the earliest possible moment.” 

“ If I had only told him so — just once — when we were 
together,” she thought to herself, tearfully remembering 
the particular occasion upon which he had so entreated 
her for one verbal expression of affection. 

“ Say ‘ Tillet, I love you ’ — just one time,” he had 
pleaded, and she had refused. An agony of remorse over- 
whelmed her at the remembrance. 


198 


A WATCH-KEY. 


“ If I had only known,” she thought. “ If I had only 
known !” 

Mr. Everett had made one determined effort to compel 
his daughter to break her engagement, but had encoun- 
tered a will as resolute as his own. 

“I shall marry Tibet Clavering, papa, if he lives and I 
live,” she had said to her father, with a strange, burning 
light in her eyes that frightened him. 

Then Mrs. Everett’s condition had become alarmingly 
worse, and the more remote trouble had given place to the 
nearer one. She had been very sick ever since the night 
of the arrest — had been unconscious more than half the 
time, and, just as soon as consciousness would return, 
her fever would rise and she would grow worse again. 
Thus she lay, for weeks, vibrating between life and death. 
Then, when the immediate brain trouble had been con- 
quered, a slow wasting fever set in, which was slowly con- 
suming the little vitality she had left. 

“ She has no recuperative power whatever,” the doc- 
tor had said, on the occasion of one of his professional 
visits. “ Her constitution seems to have been completely 
undermined.” 

It was the time for his usual evening visitation. Marian 
glanced up at the clock, just as the door-bell rang. A 
moment later, the sick-room door opened and the doctor 
entered. 

“How is your mother this evening?” he asked of 
Marian, as she gave place to him at the bedside. “ Poor 
thing!” he thought compassionately. “I wonder if she 
knows how the trial is going ? ” 

“Howdojj/^?/ think she is, doctor?” the girl asked, 
raising her great sorrowful eyes to his face. 

The doctor coughed. 


A WATCH-KEY. 


199 


“ She has some fever,” he said. “ Where is your 
father? ” he asked, after counting his patient’s pulse. 

“ Papa is in the dining-room.” 

“ I would like to see him a moment.” 

Then Marian went out, and Mr. Everett came in shortly 
afterwards. 

“ Well, doctor?” he said interrogatively. 

“ She has grown very much worse since I was here 
this morning. When did this change take place ? ” asked 
the doctor. 

“ I scarcely know,” answered Mr. Everett. “ 1 don’t 
see that there is any material difference in her condition, 
doctor.” 

“ But I do,” said the doctor. “This morning I thought 
there might be a little hope—” 

“You don’t mean — ” 

“ That the fiat has gone forth,” said the doctor solemnly. 
“ I am afraid it has, Mr. Everett, but we will do all that 
we can.” 

“You must be mistaken, doctor,” said the now thor- 
oughly awakened husband. He had never permitted 
himself to believe that his wife was really as ill as every- 
body seemed to consider her. 

“ I hope I may be,” said the doctor. “ God only knows 
what you will do with this family without her,” 

Mr. Everett fairly groaned. 

“Call in other physicians, doctor. Perhaps--” 

“ I was about to propose a consultation,” said the doc^ 
tor, interrupting him. “ Doctors Willard and Harris — ” 

“Shall I send for them at once?” 

“ I will call in with them in the course of an hour,” 
said the doctor, turning towards the door. 

In less than half that time, the three physicians had 


200 


A WATCH-KEY. 


convened. They examined the patient and retired for 
consultation. 

Mr. Everett awaited their decision with breathless 
anxiety. He was not an unfeeling man, and the extremity 
of his wife’s situation touched^him deeply. Physical suf- 
fering was a thing he could appreciate, and for which he 
had a very sincere and ready sympathy. His mind went 
back, as he looked upon his unconscious wife, to the time 
when he had first married her, and brought her, a bloom- 
ing bride, to their mutual home. And now they had a 
grown daughter as beautiful as her mother had been. He 
remembered now that she had been beautiful. He had 
almost forgotten it, for a long time, but now the Sibyl 
Herbert he had made love to, twenty years ago, had 
curiously taken the place of the Sibyl Everett of later 
days. “ She was so pretty,” he thought. “ Poor Sibyl !” 
The husband’s eyes misted over with tears, as he men- 
tally reviewed one reminiscence after another of their 
early wedded life. “ If she can only just get well this 
time,” he thought prayerfully. 

But the doctors were returning from the parlor, to 
which they had withdrawn for consultation. 

Mr. Everett rose, the intensity of his anxiety depicted 
upon hisTroubled face. A very troubled face it was. 

“ Mr. Everett,” said the family physician, anticipating 
the question that trembled upon the husband’s lips, “ we 
are going to do the very best we can to save your wife, 
but it would be wrong for us not to tell you that her sit- 
uation is a most critical one. The end is liable to come — 
any time.” 

Mr. Everett felt that it was more than he could bear. 

“ How is Mrs. Herbert?” he asked, suddenly thinking 
of his sister-in-law and the tower of strength she would 


A WATCH-KEY. 


201 


be to them all, if she could only be spared from her 
mother’s bedside. 

“ Mrs. Herbert is very low,” said Dr. Willard. “ I have 
very little hope of her recovery.” And then the doctors 
took their departure and the stricken household settled 
down to their vigil by that hopeless sick-bed. 

Marian came in after the physicians had left and looked, 
with an agony of questioning, into her father’s face. 

Mr. Everett burst into tears, and Marian threw herself, 
in an abandon of suffering, face foremost upon a lounge 
before the fire. “ How can I bear it?” she moaned. 

Ah ! who has not asked that question of God and 
man and earth and heaven, as the wave of some terrible 
calamity has been seen approaching in the distance ! 
When it comes, we just lie down and let it sweep over us — 
bear it, as we protested we could not. We can bear any- 
thing that we have to bean There is a limit to mun- 
dane joy — our happiness is a clipped-wing bird which 
can fly so high and no higher ; but our capacity for suf- 
fering is a vast, shoreless, fathomless ocean, whose bound- 
aries have never been discovered and whose depths have 
never been sounded. 


202 


A WATCH-KEY. 


CHAPTER XXIII. 

There was crape upon two doors in Milledgeville. Mrs. 
Everett and Mrs. Herbert were dead — the mother after 
a comparatively short illness, the daughter after an illness 
of months. It was the day of the double funeral. Notice 
had been sent around to the effect that the services would 
be held at ii P. M at the Protestant Episcopal Church, 
communicants of which both mother and daughter had 
been. 

In the Herbert household there was sorrow. In the home 
of the Everetts there was despair. Mr. Everett looked 
like an old man, as he walked from room to room, looking 
in vain for the familiar presence which would never greet 
him more ; the children wandered about like lost spirits, 
and the servants went about their duties with that air of 
importance which became them as assistants at so solemn 
a pageant ; every ray of sunlight was excluded from, the 
house ; the curtains were down, the doors closed and the 
mirror and pictures in the parlor draped in white, after 
that barbarian custom which seeks to render death more 
horrible still — if that be possible — than it really is. 

Miss Herbert had been over in the early morning to 
take a last sad look upon the features of the sister she 
loved so well, but had been compelled to return almost 
immediately to her prostrated, grief-stricken father. 
Other friends and neighbors came in from time to time, 
to express their feelings of sympathy and bring their 
offerings of flowers. It was literally covered with flowers 
— that pale, still form. There were flowers in the marble 
hands, upon the pulseless breast, and crowning the pre- 


A WATCH-KEY. 


203 


maturely gray locks were the orange blossoms which, 
twenty years ago, had crowned the bride’s golden hair. 
She wore also her wedding-dress of white satin, and the 
beauty which had been hers in youth came back again to 
Sibyl Everett in her coffin. The worn, anxious look had 
faded away from her features, and in its stead was that 
placid calm which we only see on the faces of the dead. 

The door opened slowly. A little three-year old — the 
baby of the band — looked in wonderingly. He had been 
lost sight of in the general preoccupation, and now 
strayed into the room where that still Presence lay. He 
came timidly up to the coffin, the hushed atmosphere of 
the room, and its changed aspect generally, exerting 
their influence upon his baby mind. After awhile he 
reached out his little dimpled hand to the one which 
would never clasp it more. 

“ Dive me one putty fower — mamma, pease. Me won’t 
poil it.” 

But the mother was silent. Whenever had she been 
silent before to so tender an appeal ! 

“Pease, mamma,” pleaded the child; “des one.” 

Then he reached out his little hand and took a pure 
white rose from a cluster that lay upon his mother’s 
breast. Then the strange, chill look about everything 
frightened him and he began to cry. A servant, who 
happened to be passing through the hall, heard him and 
hurried into the room. She was a mother herself, and 
the pathetic spectacle went straight to her simple, kindly 
heart. 

“ Don’t cry, baby,” she said, taking the motherless 
child in her compassionate arms. “Your poor mamma 
is dead. You may kiss her if you want to, and then you 
must come away.” 

“ Is mamma sick, Mary? ” 


204 


A WATCH-KEY. 


“ No, honey. She has been sick, but she is well now 
but come along,” she added, trying to lead the child away 
by the hand, but he resisted her. 

“What did they put my mamma in that box for? ” 

“ Willie, you must come away.” 

“ Let me kiss my mamma first.” 

The kind-hearted woman lifted the child in her arms, 
and he put his little warm, red lips upon those other 
death-cold ones. Their icy contact frightened him. He 
began to cry loudly and the woman hurried him from the 
room. 

Marian entered it almost immediately, gliding in noise- 
lessly, like a wan, white spirit. She went straight up to 
the cofhn, then knelt down by it and laid her golden head 
upon the breast which had pillowed it in infancy. The 
passion of her grief had expended itself. She had no 
more tears to weep, because she had shed them all. An 
apathy of despair was upon her. She lay there, her grief- 
bowed young head upon that chill breast, for how long, 
or how short, a time, whether for hours or for moments, 
she could not have told — for she took no note of time — 
until her father entered the room and tearfully raised her 
in his arms. 

“You must come away, Marian,” he said. “Go up 
stairs to your room. They are coming — ” 

There was no need to finish the sentence, for the moth- 
erless girl understood it all too well. Her white, white 
face turned whiter still ; then she stooped and kissed the 
serene dead face, again, and again, and again, upon brow, 
and lips, and cheek — then she pressed her lips upon the 
cold, cold hands which had performed so many offices of 
love for her, and then she went noiselessly away. 


A WATCH-KEY. 


205 


The sable-plumed hearse was at the door. The last sad 
rites were beginning. 

The family physician called hastily to see Mr. Everett. 

“ I came to positively forbid Marian’s going out this 
morning,” he said. “ She could not endure the strain. I 
wouldn’t answer for the consequences of it.” 

“But how would it look, doctor?” 

“ Life and sanity before looks, Mr. Everett. I repeat 
again, I wouldn’t answer for the consequences to your 
daughter, if she attempts to go through the ordeal of 
this funeral. I have been observing her closely for days 
and — ” The doctor hesitated. 

“ I will see what can be done with her,” said Mr. Ever- 
ett, sighing, and then the doctor took his leave. 

Marian agreed, without any trouble, to stay at home. 
She seemed locked in an apathetic stupor, when her 
father left her, lying inert and tearless upon a lounge 
under her chamber window. 

An unusual crowd attended the funeral services. The 
little church was packed to its utmost capacity. There 
was scarcely room for the two coffins to be brought up 
the aisles. It was the saddest funeral, everybody said, 
that had ever taken place in Milledgeville. The two 
hearses containing the mortal remains of mother and 
daughter came from opposite directions and met at the 
church-yard gate. They were borne up the aisles and 
laid side by side before the chancel-rail, directly in front 
of which, on the'foremost seat of the central row of pews, 
sat Mr. Everett and his seven little motherless boys. The 
two largest were old enough, in part, to appreciate the 
sad occasion, but the younger ones looked curiously 
around upon the flowers, and the people, and the white- 


2o6 


A WATCH-KEY. 


gloved pall-bearers, in childish ignorance of their sorrowful 
portent. 

The bell tolled out upon the air, like the wail of a lost 
spirit. The terrible sound fell upon Marian’s ears as she 
lay where her father had left her, upon the little lounge 
under her chamber window. She sprang up, a wild, 
strange, despairing look in her eyes. She put both hands 
to her ears and buried her face in the pillows of the 
lounge, but the remorseless sounds penetrated even there. 
She counted everyone ; she could not help it — one — two — 
three— four, and on to thirty-six, her mother’s age when 
death claimed her. She rose then and staggered to the 
window, below which two servants were standing in 
excited conversation. The wind brought the sound of 
their voices to her ears. 

“ Dere’s trouble enough in dis house, God knows, widout 
dat,” said one. 

“Can’t be helped, if dere is,” said the other; “its so. 
Dere’s a ’spatch just come to the telegraph office, saying 
Mr. Tillet is convicted. Dat means gwine be hung, don’t 
it?” 

“ What is that you said ? ” asked a voice from the upper 
window, so changed in tone that neither of the women 
recognized it as Marian’s, until they saw her bloodless 
face looking down upon them from the casement. 

: “ Lord, Miss Marian, nuthin’ — justnuthin’ at all,” said 
one of the women, frightened nearly out of her wits. 
“ Why didn’t you tell me she was up there ? ” she added, 
in a lowered voice, turning indignantly to her companion. 

Then a strange, wild laugh floated down to them from 
Marian’s chamber window. They looked at each other 
in consternation, but said nothing. 


A WATCH-KEY. 


207 


“ I wish Mr. Everett was here,” said one, after a few 
moments. 

“ What time is it ? ” asked the other. “ It can’t be long 
before they git back now. Dem ’piscopals don’t have no 
sermon, you know.” 

Then they went into the kitchen, and the house of 
mourning was silent, until the sorrowful little band — one 
less in number — returned from the funeral. 

Mr. Everett put the children in charge of a servant and 
went straight up to Marian’s room. When he opened the 
door, she was sitting upon the foot of the bed, a small 
cord and tassel which belonged to her dressing-gown in 
her hand. She threw it around her neck as her father 
entered. 

“Tell them not to hang him,” she said, an awful light 
in her eyes. “ I am going to hang myself in his place.” 

“ She is crazy ! ” cried the frenzied father. “ God in 
heaven, have mercy upon us all ! ” 

While this terrible scene was being enacted in the home 
of the Everett’s, all Milledgeville was going wild over the 
news from Richmond. 

“ It can’t be possible,” said the people who had known 
Tillet Clavering all their lives, “ that he will be really 
hung. He will get another trial, or a pardon, or some- 
thing.” 

But the result did not justify their expectations. He 
did not get a new trial, nor yet a pardon, although the 
execution of his sentence was long deferred. It was not 
until the fourteenth day of January, 1887, that Tillet 
Clavering died on the scaffold, for a crime he had never 
committed, a death that even his worst defamers admit- 
ted to be heroic. 


208 


A WATCH-KEY. 


CHAPTER XXIV. 

A GLIMPSE INTO THE XXTH CENTURY. 

Fifteen years have passed away since that awful winter 
morn, under whose clear sunlight Tillet Clavering was led 
out, before a jeering mob, to die a death of ignominy. 
The sod is green over his monumentless grave, and there 
are two others beside it. In death, he sleeps between 
the two women who loved him best in life — between the 
woman who had been a mother to him and the one who 
was to have been his wife. It was the dying prayer of 
both Mrs. Golding and Marian Everett that they should 
be laid beside him. 

“ I want no monument,” Marian had said in her last 
hours (she had a lucid interval just before death). “ He 
has none. Just lay me beside him and let the same grass 
grow over our graves.” 

“ Lay me beside my poor boy,” Mrs. Golding had said, 
with almost her dying breath. She had died before 
Marian. “ I can’t bear to think of him lying out there 
so lonely.” 

And so it was. The three green, unmarked graves 
were inclosed by an iron railing, in a secluded spot, some 
distance removed from Milledgeville cemetery. He could 
not rest in consecrated ground, poor Tillet, and so they 
had laid him there to sleep out his last long sleep, and 
the two who loved him best on earth soon joined him. 
There were flowers on those three unmarked graves 
always — winter and summer. Those sleepers were not 


A WATCH-KEY. 


209 


forgotten, although no marble tablet told the world the 
story of their life and death. 

Fifteen years ! How swiftly they pass away, and yet 
what changes are wrought in their flight ! There have 
been changes in Milledgeville — many changes — in the in- 
tervening years of A. D. 1887 and 1902. There have also 
been changes in that quiet little city just out of Milledge- 
ville — that city whose inhabitants are silent always, who 
take no note of time, and for whom the fashion of this 
world has passed forever away. There have been changes 
in Milledgeville cemetery. It is more populous than it 
was. There are many, many more graves. Broken- 
hearted mothers have laid their children there, husbands 
their wives, and wives their husbands, since the memora- 
ble day of the double funeral in Milledgeville. Over 
Mrs. Everett’s grave there is an imposing monument, 
recording the dates of her birth and death and bearing 
the inscription, “A faithful wife and mother has gone to 
her eternal reward.” Her “baby ” is now a young man 
grown and a cadet at the Military Institute of Lexington, 
Virginia. The other boys are bearded men and one of 
them is married. Marian survived the tragedy of her 
lover’s death only a few years, and those were spent in 
one of the Virginia asylums for the insane. The mists 
cleared away from her brain just before death, and she 
bound her father, by a solemn death-bed promise, to 
bury her beside Tillet Clavering. This had been distaste- 
ful, in the highest degree, to Mr. Everett’s feelings, but 
he had no alternative. He was not the man to break a 
death-bed promise. Honor and truthfulness were his two 
strong points, and ones that made amends for many faults 
of character. He married a second time, after a widow- 
hood of two years. It was the right and proper thing 


210 


A WATCH-KEY. 


for him to do, everybody said, and his choice was a most 
judicious one — a childless widow of thirty who stepped 
into that womanless household like a providence. A 
sensible, practical little body she was, and her husband 
understood her exactly. She was not a terra incognitato 
him, as his first wife had been. She never looked up into 
his face with hungry, yearning eyes for that which he 
could never give. Her requirements and exactions were 
all quite intelligible — were put into plain, senible Eng- 
lish — and he knew howto respond to them. She was a 
kind hearted woman, withal, and a good mother to his 
children. All things considered, Mr. Everett had been a 
fortunate man in his second matrimonial selection. His 
business affairs were prosperous. He was the largest 
property-holder, but two, in Milledgeville. Theodore 
Clarence ranked first, then a wealth)’’ young heiress. Miss 
Arrington, and then himself. He lived at the same old 
homestead, but had made many improvements thereupon. 
Milledgeville had been “looking up,” for years, in the 
matter of its private residences. Almost everybody had 
“ fixed up ” considerably in the past fifteen years. Mill- 
edgeville had quite recovered from the paralysis super- 
vening upon the war. There were many stylish resi- 
dences now in the place, foremost among which was that 
occupied jointly by Mr. and Mrs. Theodore Clarence and 
Mr. and Mrs. Henry Bragg. It was hard to tell who 
owned those premises, by odds the handsomest in Mill- 
edgeville. The nominal master and owner — Mr. Theo- 
dore Clarence himself — was quite an underling in his own 
house. Everybody came before him. 

“ There is a soft place about that man’s head some- 
where,” is Mrs. Talons’ version of the subject. That 
good lady is in her usual health and spirits, and lends a 


A WATCH-KEY. 


2II 


hand to the adjusting of matters, public and private, with 
her olden zest and energy. Her hair is quite gray now, 
but she is as vivacious as of old. “Talk of being hen- 
pecked,” she remarked to a friend, on one occasion ; 
“ why that man is >^^?2-pecked, rooster pecked and chicken- 
pecked. He is a perfect underling in his own house. 
Even his own children impose upon him, and he is a per- 
fect slave to his wife and her parents. I never saw any- 
thing to equal it in my life ; but I predicted a good deal 
of it, before it came to pass,” the good lady added, solac- 
ing herself with the recollection. “ I knew those Braggs.” 

“ Those Braggs,” as Mrs. Talons called them, had been 
riding, for fifteen years, on the uppermost wave of worldly 
prosperity. They, or their representatives, were the 
richest people in Milledgeville — a distinction Mrs. Bragg 
once coveted beyond all things else in the world. But 
she does not look, as she now sits upon the front porch 
of her daughter’s elegant mansion, as if the accomplish- 
ment of this desire of her heart had consummated her hap- 
piness. She is quite gray now and shows her age in 
other respects. She has made the discovery, some time 
since, that riches do not necessarily constitute happiness — 
that as much suffering can be experienced upon a velvet 
carpet as upon a plain pine floor. In her youth and mid- 
dle age, Mrs. Bragg had coveted wealth and social dis- 
tinction as the ne plus ultra of human felicity, but now, 
in her old age, she is learning that there are other things 
more desirable still when one descends into the vale of 
years. Splendid surroundings and worldly honors cannot, 
compensate to the old for the absence of affection — that 
heavenly currency which purchases for us the ease, and 
comfort, and heart-joy which only love can buy. The 
old need love, and, with all her riches, Mrs. Bragg is poor 


‘212 


A WATCH-KEY. 


in that. Henry Bragg loves nobody but himself, and his 
daughter is made in his own image. Her children are 
like her, selfish and exacting in the extreme, and grand- 
ma’s bed is not a couch of roses. She has the responsi- 
bility of the whole household — a severe physical and 
mental strain, at her time of life. Mrs. Clarence does 
nothing but travel around and indulge herself in every 
possible way. The rearing of her children and the man- 
agement of her household devolve upon her mother 
entirely. It is no sinecure office — the care of the children 
especially. They are six in number, and sickly and selfish, 
and look upon “ grandma” in the light of an institution 
existing solely for their convenience and amusement. 
They value her in the exact proportion that she con- 
tributes to their comfort and exactions, and “ grandma ” 
sees this and feels it, as the old feel everything. She has 
often envied the poorest women, when she has seen their 
grandchildren fondling and caressing them, voluntarily 
and unbidden. Why can’t Ellen’s children love me 
that way ?” she would think. But “ Ellen's children ” had 
never been trained to love, just as their mother had never 
been trained before them. They had been taught, from 
their cradles, to worship the god of Appearances — had 
been educated, by the force of example, if in no other 
way, to look upon outside show as everything, and to put 
a mercenary valuation upon even the holiest things. 
Verily, "Whatsoever a man soweth that shall he also 
reap.” Mrs. Bragg was digesting this piece of scriptural 
philosophy, at her leisure, when a voice broke in upon 
her meditations. 

" Grandma, has my dress come home yet ? ” 

The speaker was the eldest Miss Clarence, aged four- 
teen, and the dress alluded to was a blue silk, intended 
for a festive occasion the next evening. 


A WATCH-KEY. 


213 


“ No, Nellie; Miss Craft is sick, and couldn’t finish it. 
I sent around to see about it this morning. ” 

“That is just the way I am treated — always,” said 
Nellie, throwing herself sulkily down upon the veranda 
steps. “ Lucy can have whatever she wants, but I am 
always put off.” 

“ It was unavoidable this time, dear,” said “grandma,” 
in a conciliatory voice. “ The woman is really sick and 
not able to do anything. Your lilac silk is quite new. 
You have only worn it a few times.” 

“And is the most unbecoming thing I have in the world. 
I suppose I will be obliged to wear it, though,” said the 
young lady with the air of a martyr. 

Mrs. Bragg sighed. 

“ I would have sent for the dress and finished it my- 
self, Nellie,” she said, apologetically, “ but I really can’t 
see now to do such fine work. My eyes are not as strong 
as they used to be.” 

“ They are always strong enough to do anything for 
Lucy,” said Lucy’s sister, with which pertinent hint she 
sulkily retired into the house. 

“ Mother, baby is screaming with the colic,” said Mrs. 
Clarence’s voice from an upper window, and the pettish 
tone of it said, more plainly than words, “You are neg- 
lecting your business in not being up here to see after 
him.” ^ 

Mrs. Bragg rose slowly from her seat — she was rather 
rheumatic these days — and went upstairs to see after the 
junior Master Clarence. His mother passed her on the 
way down, attired in full calling costume. 

“ Don’t wait supper for me,” she called back from the 
front door. “ I may not get back until late.” 

Then the lady raised her dainty parasol, and sallied 
forth to make a tour of evening calls. 


214 


A WATCH-KEY. 


The first place at which she left a card was a large, 
handsome brick residence, after her own the most pre- 
tentious in Milledgeville. It was the home of the richest 
woman in the place. Its owner and mistress. Miss Emily 
Arrington, was the beauty and belle of Milledgeville. 
She was an orphan, and had inherited her fortune from 
a distant relative out West, who had died intestate, and 
to whom she was the nearest of kin. She was chaperoned 
by a widowed aunt who had lived with her during the 
period of her orphanage, which was co-exitent with that of 
her heiress-ship. She had no other near relative, her father 
and mother having come to Milledgeville, as strangers, 
about twenty years previous to the time of which I write. 
Thus much, by way of explanation. 

“ Are Miss Arrington and Mrs. Wilson at home ?” in- 
quired Mrs. Clarence of the servant who answered her 
touch upon the door-bell. 

“ No’m. They are out calling.” 

“ Give them this then,” said Mrs. Clarence, producing a 
gilded card from her silver card-case, “ and tell them I 
was sorry not to have found them at home.” 

Then she took leave, and the servant duly deposited 
her card in the tray of a card-basket which depended 
from the hall chandelier. 

It was not long before there was another summons 
from the bell. The same servant answered it. A gentle- 
man stood at the door when she opened it this time — a 
tall, gray-haired, handsome man, with a stern, sad expres- 
sion upon his features. 

“ Is Miss Arrington at home ? ” he asked. 

The servant gave him the same answer she had given 
Mrs. Clarence, but added : “ She said she was going to get 
in early this evening. I don’t think you would have long 
to wait for her if you were to come in and sit down.” 


A WATCH-KEY. 


215 


“ I will do that,” said the gentleman, “ as I wish to see 
her upon very important business.” 

Then the servant showed him into the parlor, and Tun- 
stall Clavering — for it was he — sat down to wait for the 
heiress. 

Let us look for awhile upon the face over which fifteen 
years have passed — fifteen years and an infinity of suffer- 
ing. That suffering has left its impress upon every fea- 
ture of the face, as well as upon the prematurely gray 
hair which crowns the head of this man, yet in the prime 
of life. He is a handsomer man than he was in early 
youth — has proved to be one of those rare men whom 
years improve physically. The slender stripling of fifteen 
years ago has developed into a man of magnificent pro- 
portions and superb physique. His figure and bearing 
would distinguish him in any crowd — would attract 
admiring attention — but they are the least part of him. 
He is even more generously endowed mentally than 
physically — has won his way to the foremost rank at the 
bar by a native force of intellect, which has been a reve- 
lation to all who knew him in the days of his quiet, 
undemonstrative youth. He is a stern, cold, silent man 
now, with a weight of premature age upon his shoulders, 
and but one aim and purpose in life — to unearth Lydia 
Mason’s murderer, and vindicate his martyred brother’s 
memory. As a means to that end, he has adopted that 
brother’s profession, and devoted himself to it with a 
passion of energy — until he is known far and wide as the 
great criminal lawyer of Virginia — but, at the expiration 
of fifteen years, he is no nearer his goal than at first. But 
he has not despaired. An invincible faith possesses 
him. “ I will find him yet,” he still says to himself with 
grim determination. That is the tenor of his thoughts — 


2i6 


A WATCH-KEY. 


it is always the tenor of his thoughts — when they are 
suddenly diverted by the entrance of Miss Arrington. 

They describe Emily Arrington rightly who call her a 
beautiful woman. No one would ever think of coupling 
the word “ pretty ” with her name. Handsome, they 
would involuntarily say. Queenly, her admirers — and 
they were legion — called her, and she merited the epithet. 
She was that rarest of all combinations, a tall, graceful 
woman, and she was admirably proportioned as well ; her 
personal pulchritude was not a matter of eyes and com- 
plexion merely; she was a finely-formed woman, withal. 
One of those statuesque women that one meets once in a 
life-time, perhaps, seldom oftener, and who never break — 
who are as beautiful at sixty as at sixteen. She was a 
brunette, too, of that rare type whose complexion can 
rival that of the purest blonde ; is of that soft, creamy, 
olive tint which never grows sallow with age. But Emily 
Arrington’s eyes were her chiefest beauty. They were 
“ black as the midnight,” and “ soft as velvet,” and “ lum- 
inous as stars,” according to her multitudinous admirers. 
They had all coined epithets for them, but none that 
were adequately descriptive. One had to look into those 
eyes to appreciate their beauty, 

Tunstall Clavering was looking into them now, but he 
was strangely oblivious of their- beauty. 

After the usual salutations, he proceeded at once to the 
business which was the object of his call. Business was 
the object of all his calls upon Emily Arrington. She, 
as well as all other women, existed for him in solely a 
business capacity. He was her attorney and had the 
management of her estates in hand 

“ I called to see you. Miss Arrington,” he said, “ about 
withdrawing your deposit from the Exchange Bank of 


A WATCH-KEY. 


217 


Norfolk. I am told by those who profess to be informed 
upon the subject that it is no longer considered safe.” 

“ Mr. Clavering, I know no more about bank deposits 
and such things than — than any other woman,” said Miss 
Arrington, smiling. “ Do whatever you think advisable 
under the circumstances. I have no instructions to give 
you.” 

“That is all I wanted to see you about,” said Miss 
Arrington’s lawyer, rising. “ I will not detain you further.” 

“You are not detaining me,” said Miss Arrington, with 
a slightly heightened color. “ I would be glad if — you 
would manage my affairs as you think best.” 

She had not intended to finish her sentence in that 
way — had attempted to say, “ I would be glad to see you 
sometimes socially, as a friend, and not always on busi 
ness,” and then her courage had failed her. She was one 
of those women who simply cannot make an advance — 
who are constitutionally incapacitated for doing it. “ It 
is not my place,” she felt rather than thought. 

Then Tunstall Clavering- made his adieux and the 
heiress was left to her own society — for not long, how- 
ever, as it chanced. Mrs. Wilson soon joined her niece 
in the parlor. 

“ What did Mr. Clavering want to see you about, 
Emily?” she asked, taking possession of an Eastlake 
rocker as she spoke. “ Some business, of course,” she 
added, answering her own question. 

“Yes — a matter of business,” answered Miss Arrington. 
“He says that he understands the Norfolk bank in which 
I have deposits is not safe, and he thinks I had better 
withdraw — ” 

Here Mrs. Wilson interrupted her niece. 

“Emily,” she said earnestly, “do you know that you 
10 


2I8 


A WATCH-KEY. 


’are trusting this man absolutely? He handles your 
money as if it were his own, and you know nothing what- 
ever about your own business. What if Tunstall Claver- 
ing should turn out as Tillet did — ” 

“ What do you mean, Aunt Mary? Miss Arrington's 
black eyes flashed fire. “Tillet Clavering was a hero, a 
martyr, and his brother is a gentleman — a man whose 
reputation is spotless and whose integrity is above the 
suspicion of even his bitterest enemy.” 

“And that I am not,” said Mrs. Wilson. “ I was only 
thinking of you and your interests. One hears so much 
these days of defaulters, embezzlements and the like, that 
it is enough to make one suspicious of everybody. A 
woman is so helplessly in the power of whoever has 
charge of her business.” 

“ I am not afraid of the man who has charge of mine,” 
said Miss Arrington quietly. 

“You ought to get married, Emily, and put your busi- 
ness in the hands of some one who would have a personal 
interest in it. Does it ever occur to you, my dear, to 
remember that you are twenty-five years old and that I 
am sixty-five?” 

“ Sorrowful facts— both,” said Miss Arrington, smiling, 
“ but they are irremediable ones, and what can’t be cured 
must be endured — with philosophy.” 

“ What would you do, Emily, if I were to die to-night ? ” 

“Aunt Mary! What are you thinking about? You 
take my breath away,” said her niece, brought up stand- 
ing, as the phrase goes, by this point-blank query. “Why, 
I should be heart-broken, of course. Why do you suggest 
such things ? ” she added a little indignantly. “ They are 
bad enough when they really occur. There is no good 
anticipating them.” 


A WATCH-KEY. 


219 


“ Unless it be to prepare for them,” said Mrs. Wilson. 
“ I have thought a great deal lately over your lonely situ- 
ation, in the event of my death, and I tell you now, my 
dear, you must make up your mind to get married.” 

Miss Arrington sighed. 

“ I know,” continued Mrs. Wilson, “ where the trouble 
all lies. You are too fastidious, Emily. You are waiting 
and looking for perfection, and you will never find it. 
You have a wider range of choice than most girls, but 
you will have to put up with a mortal man. The race of 
demi-gods has died out — if it ever existed.” 

Miss Arrington sighed again. 

“There is really no use sighing over it,” said her aunt 
a little impatiently. “You will just have to accept the 
inevitable and the most eligible one of your suitors.” 

“ Who is that ?” asked her niece. 

“ Laurence Elliot, I think,” said Mrs. Wilson promptly. 
“ He is good-looking, a good business man, and well-con- 
nected, to say nothing of his irreproachable habits and 
his means. He could marry any girl in Milledgeville but 
you.” 

Miss Arrington took up a book from the centre-table 
and began absently turning its leaves. Her aunt waited 
a few moments for her to speak, and then said, a little 
impatiently : 

“Well, Emily?” 

The girl looked up at her with troubled eyes. 

“ It is a terrible thing to be a woman,” she said. “ One 
is such a bond-slave to Conventionality. Society does 
not regard, or make room for, one as an individual at all, 
but simply as an appendage to some man. When one 
becomes too old to be spoken of as A’s daughter, one 
must become B’s wife.” 


220 


A WATCH-KEY. 


“It is a law of Nature, my dear, not of Society,” 
replied her aunt. “ ‘ It is not good for man to be alone’ — 
or woman either. You will realize that when you get 
older.” 

“ I would be willing enough to marry,” began Miss 
Arrington, “ if — ” 

“If you could find an angel,” interrupted her aunt, “or 
a hero, or a piece of impossible perfection, but that is 
exactly what you will not find. As I told you a moment 
since, you will have to content yourself with an ordinary 
human being — a man such as you see around you every 
day — such as other women have to put up with.” 

“Well, there is no hurry about it, as far as I can see,” 
said Miss Arrington, taking a rose from the cluster at 
her throat and deliberately pulling it to pieces. “ I am 
not an octogenarian yet — ” 

“ But I am a sexegenarian,” said the persistent old 
lady. “You quite lose sight of that fact. My dear, I am 
speaking for your own good. As far as I am concerned--” 

“ Dear Aunt Mary, don’t you know that I know that !” 
said the girl, interrupting her aunt with moist eyes. “ But 
oh ! why can’t we live on forever so — just you and I ? 
We have been very happy all these years.” 

“You are a strange girl, Emily. I don’t believe there is 
another in the world like you. Most girls would jump at 
some of the chances you have had. Very few of them 
ever arrive at your age without having fancied themselves 
in love with somebody, or a good many somebodies, at 
different times. But you — I don’t believe you ever had 
even a passing fancy for any man in your life.” 

A little wave of color swept into Miss Arrington’s face, 
but she remained silent. 

“ I will think over what you have said, auntie,” she 
said to Mrs. Wilson, and do — whatever the fates decide.” 


A WATCH-KEY. 


221 


“You will have to be your own fate and make your 
own decision, I suspect,” said the old lady, and then she 
asked her niece for a song, and Miss Arrington rose from 
her seat and went over to the piano. 

She had a full, rich soprano voice and sang with a great 
deal of expression, just as she painted with considerable 
skill and wrote with tolerable fluency; but there WaS a 
point, in all, beyond which she did not go, and of which 
she was quite conscious. “ If I could only concentrate 
my talents upon some particular one, I might do and be 
something,” she thought ; “ but as it is, I am only an 
echo of somebody else.” And, with these thoughts, she 
closed the piano, just as the tea bell sent its sharp tinkle 
through the house. 


222 


A WATCH-KEY. 


CHAPTER XXV. 

After tea there were callers — Messrs. Elliot and Tur- 
ner. The last named gentleman took leave first and left 
the field open to his rival. Miss Arrington exerted all 
her ingenuity, short of an absolute spoken request, to 
detain him as a barrier between her and a proposal, or an 
answer to one rather; but he was not to be detained, 
and she was, in spite of herself, face to face with the 
necessity of saying Yes or No, once for all, to Laurence 
Elliot. 

He was not long in putting the alternative to her. 

“ Don’t you think I have waited almost long enough ? ” 
he said, exchanging his own for the chair his friend had 
vacated, almost immediately after that gentleman’s depar- 
ture. “You have been keeping me on the tenter-hooks, 
now for six months, and it is not an enjoyable position.” 

Miss Arrington said nothing for a moment. Her face 
wore a very troubled look. 

“ I scarcely know what to do or say,” she said at 
length. “ My mind is a chaos of conflicting opinions ; but 
I recognize one fact clearly — you are entitled to an 
answer. I have no right to keep you on the tenter-hooks 
longer.” 

The young man turned quite pale at ^his crisis of his 
destiny. 

“ If I say anything now,” said Miss Arrington slowly, 
“ it will have to be No.” 

“^you say anything,” said her lover quickly. “Do 
you mean that you want more time to — consider?” 


A WATCH-KEY. 


223 


“ I have no right to ask it,” said Miss Arrington almost 
humbly. 

The young man looked into her face searchingly. 

“ I never thought you a cruel woman,” he said — “ one 
who would keep a man dangling on in your train just for 
the amusement you could get out of him — the eclat of 
exhibiting your power over him.” 

“ If you think so now,” said Miss Arrington, with a 
quick, })roud flush, “you had better take the answer I 
have given you and end the matter. I have no disposi- 
tion whatever to retain you, against your will — in my 
train.” 

'' Dotit misunderstand me,” said Laurence Elliot dep- 
recatingly. “I am quite willing to proclaim to the world 
my allegiance to you — to serve for you as Jacob served 
for Rachel, if — there is any real hope of an ultimate 
reward. I throw myself upon your generosity — your 
magnanimity. If you really are undecided (I don’t 
want to throw away the infinitesimal fraction of a hope), 
take more time. But don't trifle with me.” 

“ I have no intention of trifling with you,” said the 
girl simply, “ for, in trifling with you, I should also be 
trifling with myself. I am as anxious to come to some 
definite conclusion as you can possibly be. You don’t 
know how unsettled I feel.” 

“ I know how unsettled I feel,” said the young man 
with a short laugh, “ but I have determined to emulate 
the patience of Job. Take time — as much as you want — 
if there is only a hope of your writing your name Mrs. 
Elliot at the end of it.” 

Then the conversation drifted into impersonal channels. 
They discussed politics, literature, and other current sub- 
jects of interest — Miss Arrington had a wider range of 


224 


A WATCH-KEY. 


conversation than most girls — until the ormolu clock on 
the mantel chimed out eleven, when Mr. Elliot made his 
adieux and took his departure. 

“ VJhycant I make up my mind ? ” said Miss Arrington 
to herself, when the door had once closed behind him. 
“ I had fully determined to say Yes, before he came, but, 
face to face with the exigency, I very nearly said No.” 

Then Mrs. Wilson entered, a world of interrogation in 
her eyes. 

“What is the status of affairs now, Emily?” she 
asked. 

“Aunt Mary ! don’t ask me.” 

“You surely haven’t discarded Laurence Elliot?” 

“ No, I have not discarded him,” said her niece slowly. 
“It would be better, perhaps, if I had — ” 

“ What have you done, Emily ? ” 

“ I have taken more time,” said the girl, sighing pro- 
foundly. “ What else could I do ? ” 

“ Laurence Elliot must certainly be a lineal descend- 
ant of Job,” said that gentleman’s unpaid advocate. “ But 
you have completely bewitched him. It is not every 
man who would allow you to make a trapball of him in 
this way.” 

“ Why can’t you live forever?” said the girl, turning 
suddenly upon her aunt, “or at least as long as I do? 
Oh ! If you only could !” 

“ But I can’t, my dear — that is, in the natural course of 
events. And they are what we must provide for. It 
will not do for you to be left entirely alone in the world, 
Emily. You innst marry in my life-time. I couldn’t die 
in peace and leave you to be fleeced alive, as you cer- 
tainly would be, for, with all your sense, my dear, you 
are so impractical. You would just be a prey to th^ 
sharpers.” 


A WATCH-KEY. 


225 


Then silence fell for a moment. The girl rose from 
her seat and began promenading slowly up and down the 
room. Finally she wandered' to the French window 
which “gave ” upon a little balcony, upon which balcony 
she stepped out and looked upon the majestic, starry 
night. Thousands and tens of thousands of constella- 
tions glittered in the blue dome overhead. Involuntarily 
those lines of Young came into her mind : 

“ Oh ! what a fane in which to worship God ! 

Oh! what a God must dwell in such a fane?” 

The night was a poem— an anthem — a grand Te Deum 
of Nature. The incense of its adoration diffused itself 
over all the sleeping world. What a puny, insignificant 
thing all worldly interests seemed under the light of 
those solemn stars ! What a great temple all Nature 
looked to be, erected for the worship of a God ! And 
man and his petty mundane concerns — how they dwindled 
away into nothingness before the splendors of this great 
material universe of God, Emily Arrington looked up 
into the great starry heights above her, and felt the spirit 
of their eternal calm distilling itself over her perturbed 
mind. She was quieted, as only the lovers of Nature can 
be quieted, by its ineffable influences — influences which, 
to those who do not comprehend them, are a mirage and 
a fable, but, to those who do, are a fountain of perpetual 
joy. How Nature can still one! How the great mother 
does comfort those '^f her children who love her, with 
her myriad voices of unwritten music ! “ What matters 

anything,” she keeps saying to them, “as long as the 
flowers bloom, and the green grass carpets the earth, and 
the glorious worlds on high spread out their nightly 
pageant for all who have eyes to see I” 


226 


A WATCH-KEY. 


“ Come in, Emily. You will take cold out there in the 
night air.” 

What a shock commonplace words and ideas are some- 
times ! How they can precipitate one, in a moment of time, 
from the loftiest heights of thought and feeling down to 
the very dust of earth; and how painful they are — how 
positively painful! They give one a mental sensation 
analogous to the physical one of having a bucket of cold 
water dashed, suddenly and unexpectedly, into one’s face. 

Miss Arrington endured this mental shower-bath with 
very ill grace indeed. She felt that she could not go in to 
the garish lamp-light and her aunt’s prosaic remon- 
strances, for a while at least. She must have a few more 
inspirations of fresh air, and, so thinking, said almost 
impatiently : 

“Aunt Mary, do let me alone. I am not a baby — 
never fear about my taking cold.” 

But Mrs. Wilson was a very determined old lady, in 
her way. She deliberately went out on the balcony and 
laid forcible hands on her niece. 

“What would become of you if I were dead! You 
are no more fit to take care of yourself than a baby. 
That is exactly what you are — a grown-up baby, and you 
just must come in before you take the diphtheria, or the 
pneumonia, or both.” 

When Mrs. Wilson took this tone there was no use 
trying to resist her, and this her niece knew quite well, so 
she surrendered at discretion and went in. 

How unspeakably commonplace the whole in-door 
world seemed ! How stifling the air was in the close, 
shut-up rooms! The two ladies retired for the night 
almost immediately, and darkness and silence reigned 
supreme. Miss Arrington arose next morning with a 


A WATCH-KEY. 


227 


weight upon her spirits — the weight of the still undecided 
matrimonial question. She carried it about with her 
during the day, an invisible burden, but no further allu- 
sions were made to the subject by her aunt. That astute 
lady was giving the seeds she had sown time to germinate. 

“ I am going out for awhile, Emily,” she said to her 
niece sonletime after dinner. “ You are not looking well. 
You had better lie down for a nap.” 

But Miss Arrington did not profit by her aunt’s sug- 
gestion. She only thought, and thought, and thought 
again over the question that was pending in her mind : 
“ Shall I marry Laurence Elliot, or shall I not ? ” That 
was the tread-mill round her meditations were traveling 
over and over again, when a servant entered with a card. 

Miss Haliburton’s name was upon the card, and the 
young lady herself in the parlor. 

Miss Arrington joined her there almost immediately. 
After a few moments of desultory conversation. Miss 
Haliburton said : 

“ I heard something about you the other day, and I 
want to know whether or not it is true.” 

“ I generally divide what I hear by about ten,” said 
Miss Arrington, dryly, “and the quotient sometimes has 
a modicum of truth in it.” 

“One does hear a great deal that is not so,” admitted 
Miss Haliburton ; “ but, then, one gets hold of the truth 
occasionally. I wonder if this report that is going the 
rounds about you is true,” she added, bringing matters to 
a personal focus. 

But Miss Arrington seemed without curiosity. She 
did not ask what “ the reports ” in question were. She 
merely said : 

“ They are a matter of no consequence, I suppo.se, 
anyway. Has your mother gotten quite well ? ” 


228 


A WATCH-KEY. 


“ Mother is better — yes. But these reports are of more 
consequence than you think. It is rumored, and gener- 
ally believed, that you are soon to marry Mr. Elliot.” 

Miss Haliburton’s inflection of voice and accompanying 
expression of countenance here put the interrogation 
that she failed to shape into words. 

“I never concern myself about rumors,” said Miss 
Arrington, almost haughtily. “ I have a sufficiency of 
other things to worry over.” 

Miss Haliburton opened her round eyes quite wide. 

“ I didn’t know that you ever worried over anything,” 
she said. “How could you? You have everything in 
the world that you want.” 

“ Have I ? ” said Miss Arrington, smiling slightly. 

“ Of course you have,” said her friend, volubly. “ Why, 
you are rich enough to buy up Milledgeville if yoti 
wanted to, while I ” (the speaker could not forbear a per- 
sonal comparison here) “ have to count the cost of even 
a new hat. It is dreadful to be poor,” she added can- 
didly. “ There are six of us, and we have to put up with 
long-division shares.” 

“Six of you ! ” said Miss Arrington, a pathetic expres- 
sion conning into the eyes that looked, just now, more 
like great purple-velvet pansies than anything else. “ Six 
of you, and yet you call yourself poor! If I had just 
one brother or sister, I should esteem myself rich.” 

This was an entirely new view to take of the subject, 
and one that had never before occurred to Miss Halibur- 
ton. She had regarded Miss Arrington — the belle and 
beauty and heiress of Milledgeville — as standing upon a 
pinnacle of almost unimaginable felicity, and had envied 
her no little the supreme exaltation. That the heiress 
could, by any stretch of the imagination, ever condescend 


A WATCH-KEY. 


229 


to envy her, plain Annie Haliburton, seemed beyond the 
range of the wildest possibility. One half of the world 
is a volume in Sanscrit to the other half. The ragged, 
breakfastless tramp, whose idea of heaven is “a square 
meal,” can never be brought to believe in the sorrows of 
a man who has turtle and venison for dinner. They 
seem to him an absurd affectation. And the broken- 
hearted millionaire, who has just risen from a royal ban- 
quet, can scarcely extort from himself an emotion of 
sympathy for the vulgar being who asks at his door for 
bread. What are the pangs of physical hunger, he thinks, 
as he tosses the mendicant a contemptuous half-dollar, to 
that great heart-hunger which is gnawing at his vitals, 
for the child he has buried forever out of his sight? And 
thus it is. Our sympathies travel in the narrow orbit of 
our personal tastes and associations. Outside of it, we 
are quite callous and unfeeling. 

Miss Haliburton soon concluded her conversation and 
her call, and the heiress was left a second time to her own 
meditations. They were soon again broken into — this 
time by Tunstall Clavering, who made another profes- 
sional visit. 

“ I came this time to see about that block of stores on 
Main street,” he said, scarcely waiting to take a chair 
before announcing his business. “ Mr. Ellis wants to rent 
them, and he wants to know at what figures. What shall 
I tell him?” 

“ Really, I don’t know anything at all about such mat- 
ters, Mr. Clavering. I think I have told you that, in 
substance, some fifty or more times.” Miss Arrington 
spoke almost impatiently. 

Tunstall Clavering looked up at her quickly — looked at 
her, for the first time, with the eyes of the mind as well 


230 


A WATCH-KEY. 


as with those of the body. For the first time, he saw 
with his own eyes, and not through the medium of other 
people’s, that Emily Arrington was a beautiful woman. 
He noted, with quite a thrill of discovery, the creamy 
softness of the skin, the dewy lustre of the eye, and the 
whole grace and charm of this woman over whom so 
many men were raving. It was nothing to him, as she 
was nothing but a well-paying client ; but she was beau- 
tiful, rarely lovely, he thought, as he looked at her for 
the first time. 

She was curiously conscious of the changed nature of 
his regard, and it embarrassed her somewhat — threw her 
out of the stately calm which usually enveloped her as a 
garment. She was, ordinarily, the mistress of a perfect 
self-possession, but it had strangely deserted her now. 
One of those heavy pauses, which are so awkward between 
two who are a little in awe of each other, had occurred in 
the conversation. The woman, as usual, was the first to 
break it. 

“Are you fond of flowers, Mr. Clavering?” she asked, 
calling his attention to a lovely bouquet of pansies which 
she had just received from a friend. “These are my 
favorite flowers,” she said, holding them up to him to 
admire. 

But there was but one association in Tunstall Claver- 
ing’s mind now with flowers. They were an offering to 
the dead. 

“ I am not particularly fond of flowers,” he said, in a 
voice that chilled the girl strangely, “ but those are very 
handsome ones — the product of your greenhouse, I sup- 
pose? ” 

Before Miss Arrington had time to reply, Mrs. Wilson 
came in and business subjects were resumed. She was a 


A WATCH-KEY. 


231 


much better business woman than her niece, and had very 
decided opinions upon matters pecuniary and otherwise. 
She gave Mr. Clavering the benefit of her advice in regard 
to the matter about which he had been consulting Miss 
Arrington, and, half laughingly, added : “It would save 
time for you to come to me always. Emily knows noth- 
ing whatever about business.” 

“That is such a self-evident fact that Mr. Clavering 
doesn’t need to be reminded of it,” said Miss Arrington, 
and then she placed the slighted pansies in a vase upon 
the mantel, and Tunstall Clavering took his leave. 

“ He will never get over his brother’s death,” said Mrs. 
Wilson, when the “ he ” of whom she was speaking was 
fairly out of ear-shot. “ I never saw a man so changed in 
my life. You were too young, I suppose, to remember 
much about the time and circumstances of Tillet Claver- 
ing’s trial and execution,” she added, interrogatively, to 
her niece. 

“ I remember them perfectly. I was so affected by 
them, as a child, that the memory of. that time is painful 
to me yet. I never felt such an agony of sympathy for 
anybody in my life, as I did for — for all concerned in the 
tragedy.” 

“ Why, you were only ten years old at the time. It 
has been fifteen years ago,” said Mrs. Wilson. 

“ Yes; it has been fifteen years ago,” echoed the girl ; 
“ and think of having to carry such a burden, such an 
agony of remembrance, about with one for fifteen years! 
How does he bear it I ” 

“ I suppose Time heals all wounds,” said Mrs. Wilson; 
“ but his have left their mark upon him. He is not the 
same man at all — has never been since his brother’s 
death.” 


232 


A WATCH-KEY. 


“ Oh ! it is hard ! It is too hard ! ” exclaimed the girl , 
a mist of unshed tears obscuring her vision. “If he 
could only forget ! ” 

Mrs. Wilson looked up wonderingly at her niece. 

“ I met Mr. Elliot upon the street this evening, and 
he sent you this,” she said, extending a book — “said 
there were marked passages in it that he wanted you to 
read.” 

The girl reached out her hand mechanically for the 
book, but her lips were trembling with emotion, to avoid 
betraying which she rose hastily and left the room. 


A WATCH-KEY. 


233 


CHAPTER XXVI. 

After leaving Miss Arrington’s, Tunstall Clavering pro- 
ceeded down street until he stood before a little white 
cottage whose yard-gate stood invitingly open. He 
entered and walked up to the little bird’s-nest of a house. 
Its mistress was standing in the porch. She bowed to 
him without speaking. 

“Are they ready?” he asked. 

The little woman gave an affirmative nod, and then dis- 
appeared into the house, to reappear almost immediately 
with three large bouquets of rare and tastefully arranged 
flowers. These she handed to Tunstall Clavering with- 
out a word, and he, without a word, placed a silver coin 
in her hands and turned his steps in the direction of Mill- 
edgeville cemetery. But his destination was beyond — to 
the three unmarked graves to which he made his weekly 
pilgrimage, through summer’s heat and winter’s cold, and 
upon which were always to be found, in all seasons, the 
choicest evergreens and flowers. There were faded bou- 
quets lying upon them now, when Tunstall Clavering 
entered the little iron inclosure, and upon the central 
grave — that of Tillet Clavering — was a beautiful cross 
and crown of the most exquisite flowers They were 
made upon heavy card-board and most artistically 
wrought. The solitary man stood gazing at them silently 
for a moment, when his revery was broken in upon by 
the soft rustling of a woman’s dress. Looking up, he 
saw Marian Herbert’s face turned towards his, with an 
expression upon it that an angel might have worn. The 
years had changed her very little — this most lovely 


234 


A WATCH-KEY. 


woman — had added as many charms as they had taken 
away. So lovely a soul must, of necessity, stamp its 
impress upon the body. Marian Herbert would be beau- 
tiful in her coffin. She came forward now, and extended 
her hand, without a word, to the man who looked up at 
her with a passion of gratitude shining in his eyes. 

“ Thank you,” he said, “ oh ! thank you for — ” he 
pointed to the lovely floral cross- and crown upon his 
brother’s graye. 

“ I did not put it there,” she said simply. “ I often 
have brought flowers here, but not these. I . know of no 
one,” she said, stooping to examine the beautifully- 
wrought emblems, “who has this variety of heliotrope 
but Emily Arrington.” 

Tunstall Clavering looked up astonished. An image 
of the beautiful face from which he had just come away 
floated before his mental vision even here — beside his 
brother’s grave. He seemed to see again the lovely, 
sensitive face, with its beautiful, gazelle-like eyes. 

“ God bless her,” he said in a voice full of emotion, “ if 
she did do this. I have often wanted to express to you,'* 
he added, turning to Miss Herbert, “ my undying grati- 
tude for all the attention you have bestowed upon this 
outcast spot. You are the only living being, but myself, 
who ever comes near it. And he has been lying here — 
my poor brother — for fifteen years, and I have done 
nothing, as yet, towards vindicating his memory. It is 
all I have lived for — all that kept me from killing myself 
or going mad when — ” It was impossible to finish that 
sentence. 

“ And he has been in heaven all these years,” said 
Marian Herbert’s tender voice. “ Fifteen years in 
heaven — think of that.” 

“ And I have been in hell.” ' 


A WATCH-KEY. 


235 


Miss Herbert looked up, with a startled expression, into 
the face almost transfigured with its passion of grief. 
“Can you imagine,” said Tunstall hoarsely, “ what it has 
been to carry about with me all these years such mem- 
ories ! They stay with me by day and by night — they 
come to me in dreams. I see him as I saw him last — 
O God ! my burden is greater than I can bear and live.” 

The quiet, silent, self-contained man had broken down 
utterly. 

Miss Herbert said nothing. She knew it was the time 
to be silent. 

“ I have been sustained all these years,” said Tunstall, 
when he had, in a measure, recovered himself, “ by the 
hope of finding the man whose crime my poor brother 
expiated. If I could only do this — could only wipe away 
the dishonor from this little spot of earth ” (pointing to 
the grave) — “ I would be content to die. It is my one 
earthly ambition.” 

“ In time perhaps you may.” 

“ I have despaired of it — despaired of Time’s doing any- 
thing for me, in any way. It may wear out some kinds 
of sorrow, but it only intensifies mine. Do you know” 
(turning to Miss Herbert) “ that there is not a day — 
scarcely an hour— that I am not stabbed to the heart, in 
some way — sometimes by the most trivial things. I have 
burned a great many things at home that I couldn’t bear 
to look at, but there are a thousand daily occurrences 
that revive memories worse than scorpions. The very 
way people look at me sometimes — the way they sud- 
denly leave off speaking when I come up to them, tells 
me more plainly than words the subject of their conver- 
sation. And a funeral — to see the flowers, and the pall- 
bearers, and all the honors and respect paid to other peo- 
ple’s dead — ” The speaker’s voice choked. 


236 


A WATCH-KEY. 


“ And yours has been an angel before the throne of 
God for fifteen years,” said a sweet, low voice. “What 
need have such as he for the poor pomps and honors of 
this world ? ” 

Then a long silence fell, which was broken, at last, by 
Miss Herbert. 

“ 1 wish you would come sometimes to see me,” she 
said to her companion. “ I would be always glad to see 
you, and it would do you good to get away from your 
office occasionally. You stay there too closely.” 

“ Work is my salvation, Miss Herbert — constant, 
absorbing work. I should have followed in poor Marian’s 
footsteps long ago but for that. I have no need of 
relaxation, or of recreation, or of anything else but — 
forgetfulness. Work and sleep are my life-preservers. I 
will come to see you, though, because I honor and 
admire you above all living creatures. God bless you and 
reward you for all your goodness to me and mine. 
Good-bye,” 

Miss Herbert watched the stately figure as it strode 
rapidly away, then she sighed, and, depositing the flowers 
she, too, had brought, turned her footsteps away from 
the lonely spot. 

When Tunstall Clavering returned to his office, he 
found a client awaiting him there — a tall, distinguished- 
looking man, and a stranger in Milledgeville. He intro- 
duced himselt as John H. Lovelace of Atlanta, Georgia, 
and proceeded at once to a statement of his business. 

“ I am a connection by marriage,” he said, “of John 
Hildegard, deceased, and have come to see you about a 
will, executed in my favor on the day of his death.” 

“ Mr. Hildegard died fifteen years ago intestate.” 

“ He is said to have died intestate, ’ said Mr. Lovelace, 


A WATCH-KEY. 


237 


*‘and that is what I have come to see you about. I his 
letter expressly states that there was a will, and it was 
written on the very day of Mr. Hildegard’s death. Read 
it." 

Mr. Lovelace here handed a letter, worn at the edges 
and yellow with age, to his lawyer. 

“ Have you done nothing with it for fifteen years ? " 
said Mr. Clavering, unfolding the letter preparatory to 
reading it. 

“ It only came into my possession two weeks ago," 
answered his client. “ My wife unearthed it from a pile 
of old rubbish when she was renovating the garret of our 
house. Noticing that the seal was still unbroken, she 
brought it to me, and I opened it, to discover that it was, 
perhaps, the most important letter I had ever received, 
and that it had been misplaced — Heaven only knows how, 
by the children or servants, very likely — for fifteen years. 
Read it, and see for yourself what it contains." 

The lawyer obeyed, with a very non committal expres- 
sion upon his face. This was what he read : 

'^Dear Friend: I scarcely know how otherwise to 
address the man whom I have not seen since he was a 
little child, and who, I suspect, has forgotten all that per- 
tains to John Hildegard but his name. That, I suppose, 
you do remember, as it is also your own. 

“ Well, I am an old man now, and a very infirm one — 
so infirm that I cannot reckon upon many more years of 
life, and I am singularly alone. There is not one living 
creature who would shed an honest tear over my grave 
if I were to die to-morrow. This thought has been 
bearing upon my mind for months. It depresses me 
more than you at your time of life can understand. I 
have thought over all the friends of my youth, and I 


238 


A WATCH-KEY. 


could think of no one whom I should so like to have 
with me in my latter days, and to leave the heir to my 
possessions, as your mother’s son. She and I were always 
fond of each other, but I completely lost sight of her 
after your father moved South. I saw, the other day, 
the notice of her death in the papers. It revived a legion 
of old memories, and I feel that I should like to know 
her son, especially as I see from the same papers that 
chronicle her death that that son is making for himself a 
name and fame in the world. I want to leave my fortune 
to some one who will put it to good use, and not scatter 
it to the four winds of heaven. I hope you are such a 
person. My heir-at-law is a graceless nephew, who lives 
by his wits now, and who would soon dissipate any patri- 
mony, however large, which might devolve upon him. 
I can’t bear the idea of his inheriting my estates; for 
which reason I have this day executed a will in your favor, 
appointing you my sole executor, devisee and legatee. 

“ Will you come to see me and try to give the old man a 
little affection, in return for all he proposes to give you? 
You will do that much, I am sure, for your mother’s old 
friend. I am feeling very badly to-day and unusually 
nervous. Let me hear from you soon. 

“Your friend, JOHN HiLDEGARD. 

“ March 4th, 1887.” 

Tunstall Clavering looked up when he had finished 
reading this letter. 

“ Don’t you think that letter proves the existence of a 
will ?” asked his client eagerly. 

“ It indicates the possibility of one,” said the lawyer, 
guardedly ; “ but the absolute proof of the existence of 
such an instrument would be necessary in your case. I 


A WATCH-KEY. 


239 


have always understood that Mr. Hildegard died intes- 
tate.” 

“ This man who was his heir-at-law has so represented,” 
said Mr. Lovelace ; “ but has he not every possible induce- 
ment to ;;2wrepresent? ” 

“That may be,” answered Mr. Clavering; “but the 
laws of the land deal with facts, proven facts — not with 
possibilities, or probabilities even. I should think, too, 
that Mr. Hildegard’s legal advi.ser would have been aware 
of the existence of any testamentary document, if such 
an one had been executed.” 

“ Mr. Hildegard was a lawyer himself,” answered Mr. 
Lovelace ; “ although at the time of his death he was 
not a practitioner. The probabilities, in his case, are 
that he would have drawn up his own papers — especially 
his last will and testament. Some men are very secretive 
about such matters, you know.” 

“ Yes,” said Mr. Clavering, unencouragingly ; “ but I am 
afraid, in this case, that you have let so long a period of 
time elapse that your opportunity has passed.” 

“ You think I have no case ? ” 

“ I am afraid you haven't. You see, the defence would 
attack you from all quarters; would call in question the 
very authenticity of this letter; would denounce it as a 
forgery. I don’t suppose, after all these years, you could 
possibly identify the handwriting.” 

“I am afraid not,” said Mr. Lovelace, sighing ; “but 
what an opportunity to have lost ! — and all through some 
child’s or servant’s carelessness.” 

“The whole affair has such an improbable look, too,” 
commented Mr. Clavering. “ I am not passing judgment 
upon it, you understand, but the public would. ‘ The 
idea,’ ten men out of every twelve would say, ‘ of a letter’s 


240 


A WATCH-KEY. 


being misplaced for fifteen years, and then found — and 
such a letter, too ! Preposterous!’ And, then, it proves 
nothing, if substantiated. Mr. Hildegard might have 
executed a will in your favor and revoked it five minutes 
after mailing that letter to you.” 

“ That is not very probable.” 

“ I shall have to remind you again that the law has 
nothing to say to probabilities. It deals with established 
verities, and with them alone.” 

“ That is all true,” admitted Mr. Lovelace; “ but sup- 
pose we give the matter a trial. We can but fail, and 
you know the old adage, ‘ Nothing venture, nothing win 1 ” 

“ That might apply in your case,” answered the matter- 
of-fact lawyer, smiling, “ but hardly so well in mine. An 
attorney, whose professional reputation is his fortune, 
cannot afford to take these hopeless cases. Every failure 
before a jury damages him pro tarito, and there would be 
a certaint}^ of failure in this case. The whole burden of 
proof would rest upon your shoulders, and no proof 
would be accepted in law but the absolute producing of 
the written instrument, the will which you believe exists, 
or irrefragible evidence to the effect that such a paper 
had existed and been destroyed subsequently to the 
testator’s death. And that you are not prepared to 
prove.” 

“No, I couldn’t prove that,” said Mr. Lovelace; “but 
I can make this fellow Clarence pretty uneasy if he has 
suppressed a will, and I mean to do that very thing. He 
shall see this letter before the sun sets, and I will see you 
again.” 

With this adieu, the gentleman bowed himself out, 
and Tunstall Clavering was left to his own reflections, 
for not long, however. Clients soon came in, one after 


A WATCH-KEY. 


241 


another, until late in the evening, when Theodore Clar 
ence brought up the rear. He came in with a very dis- 
turbed expression of countenance, and broached his 
business without delay. 

“ I have come in to see you about a miserable impos- 
ture — ” he began, when Tunstall Clavering interrupted 
him. 

“ I am Mr. Lovelace’s counsel, Mr. Clarence. If it is 
upon that matter^you have come to see me, you will have, 
to go to some other attorney.” 

And then the two men separated, Tunstall Clavering 
walking away in the direction of the registrar’s office, and 
Mr. Clarence in that of the law office of Messrs. Black & 
Stone, attorneys-at-law. 

There were huge placards posted upon the fence that 
enclosed these gentlemen’s legal premises, advertising the 
fact that Bill Arp, now a septuagenarian, would make 
positively his last appearance before the public, in the 
court-house at Milledgeville that night. “ Come early and 
get good seats,” was the injunction to one and all. 


242 


A WATCH-KEY. 


CHAPTER XXVII. 

Everybody in Milledgeville was enthusiastic over this 
last appearance of Bill Arp. 

“ Ellen, are you going out to-night ? ” Mrs. Bragg asked 
of her daughter immediately after supper. 

“Of course I am, mother,” answered Mrs. Clarence, in 
a tone that said, unmistakably, “You have asked a very 
silly question.” “The girls and Clarence and I are all 
going, of course. It is Bill Arp’s last appearance.” 

Mrs. Bragg sighed. She went out very little now, the 
exactions of the nursery were so unremitting, but she 
had quite set her heart, poor woman, upon hearing Bill 
Arp this last time. 

“ Don’t you think,” she ventured in a deprecating voice, 
“that Harriet” (that was the nurse) “could take charge 
of baby for one time and let me go, too? He is perfectly 
well now, and Henry will be here to look after — ” 

“To go to sleep over his newspaper,” interposed Mrs. 
Clarence, scornfully. “He will be a nice guardian to 
appoint over the nursery.” 

“ If I could just get baby to sleep before starting,” 
said Mrs. Bragg, still insistent, “I am sure he wbuld sleep 
until we get back.” 

“ If,” said baby’s mother incredulously. “ That is a 
very long if. He never goes to sleep before ten, as you 
very well know.” 

But, strange to say, on this particular evening baby 
did go to sleep early, and baby’s grandmother was free to 
attend the lecture which was exciting so much interest in 
Milledgeville. The younger children were all safely in 


A WATCH-KEY. 


243 


bed before she left the nursery, with many injunctions to 
the nurse about keeping them covered and attending to 
them generally. She stopped at the library-door, on 
going down stairs, and left similar instructions with her 
husband, whom a chronic rheumatic affection prevented 
always from going out at night. “ Henry,” she said to 
Mr. Bragg, who was reading a newspaper in the library, 
“ I wish you would go up to the nursery occasionally, 
while we are gone, and see if Harriet hasn’t fallen asleep 
and left the children uncovered.” 

Mr. Bragg’s reply was a surly growl. 

“ What is the use of having a grown nurse, I should 
like to know, if she can’t be left alone for a few hours 
with the children, without having a special police-guard 
appointed over her?” 

And with this reply Mrs. Bragg had to content herself. 

“Come on, mother, if you are coming at all,” called 
Mrs. Clarence’s voice from the front porch, upon which 
she was impatiently pacing in her hurry to “ get off.” 
“All the best seats will be taken — if we get any at all,” 
she added in a petulant tone. 

But Mrs. Bragg was used to petulant tones. Poor 
woman ! she scarcely heard any other from husband, 
children, or grandchildren. Her son-in-law was the only 
member of the household who paid her any respect, and 
she, by a strange instinct of human nature, vented upon 
him the illtemper which she dared not display in any 
other quarter. Theodore Clarence, poor man, was the 
pack-horse of the family. As Mrs. Talons said, even his 
own children imposed upon him, and he didn’t seem to 
have spirit enough to resent the imposition. 

In spite of Mrs. Clarence’s declaration to the contrary, 
the Clarence party, upon entering the lecture-room, were 


244 


A WATCH-KEY. 


shown to very good seats — reserved seats. They were 
soon absorbed in Bill Arp and his drolleries. 

“He certainly holds his own, to be as old a man as he 
is,” commented Mrs. Bragg’s nearest neighbor in an under- 
tone to that lady. “ I suppose nothing short of Bill Arp 
would have brought you out. I haven’t seen you before 
in an age.” 

“ No,” answered Mrs. Bragg. “ Henry’s rheumatism 
confines him so closely at home, and he always hates so 
for me to leave him, that I rarely ever go out. What is 
that? We have lost something particularly good by not 
listening,” she added, as Bill Arp brought down the 
house, at this juncture, with some one of his humorous 
sallies. 

After the stamping, and slapping, and laughing had, in 
a measure, subsided, Mrs. Clarence turned to her husband 
and said : 

“ Did you bring my shawl, Theodore ? ” 

“ No,” answered “ Theodore.” “ You never told me 
anything about bringing any shawl.” 

“But you might have known I would need one,” 
replied his wife, in an aggrieved tone. “ I shall just 
catch my death of cold, going out of this overheated 
room into the night air, without one.” 

“Shall I go back and get you one?” suggested Mr. 
Clarence, who seemed to understand what was expected 
of him on the occasion. 

“ It would be as much as my life is worth to go home 
without one,” said his wife. 

Whereupon, Mr. Clarence reached his hand under the 
bench before him, extricated his hat from two or three 
others in close proximity, put it on his head, and went 
out into the dark, windy night. 


A WATCH-KEY. 


245 


“ I thought you had concluded not to come back at 
all,” said his wife, pettishly, when he returned, at last, 
with the shawl. This was his thanks for bringing it, but 
they did not seem to disturb him. He was used to such 
little amenities from his better half. “What is the mat- 
ter with you? Have you a chill?” she asked, suddenly 
becoming aware of a ghastly .change in her husband’s 
countenance. “ I believe you have.” 

“No — no,” he said almost savagely, and the tone was 
so unusual with him that his wife opened her eyes at him 
in astonishment. “Don’t bother me,” he continued in a 
chattering voice. “ I came here to listen to Bill Arp.” 

Mrs. Clarence gave him one prolonged stare and then 
turned her attention to the speaker. He kept the audi- 
ence spell-bound until a late hour — surpassed himself, as 
everybody said, on this the occasion of his last public 
appearance. But even the best and most amusing of lec- 
tures has to end sometime, as Bill Arp’s did on the pres- 
ent occasion. He made his adieux and acknowledg- 
ments to the audience which had given him such an 
enthusiastic greeting, and they dispersed in various 
directions to their different homes. 

Mrs. Clarence drew around her shoulders the shawl 
which her husband had procured for her, at a price of 
which she never even dreamed, as she walked by his side 
up the principal street in Milledgeville to their elegantly- 
appointed home. Mrs. Bragg entered first, using a night- 
key for that purpose, and the remainder of the family 
party followed suit, with the exception of Mr. Clarence. 
He lingered in the front porch while his wife and 
daughters were divesting themselves of their wraps. Mrs. 
Bragg went on to the library, after laying aside her 
shawl and bonnet. Mrs. Clarence stopped, for a moment. 


246 


A WATCH-KEY. 


to admire her reflection in the hall mirror, adjusting, as 
she stood before it, several straggling wisps of hair that 
had wandered out of their place. She was engaged in 
this occupation when a blood curdling shriek resounded 
throughout the house, after which came the sound of a 
heavy fall from the direction of the library. All eyes 
were instantly turned in that direction, and Mrs. Clarence 
called loudly for her husband, but he made no answer. 
For a moment after that terrible wail there was silence, 
and then the eldest of the Clarence girls went determinedly 
forward and opened the library door. A scene of horror 
greeted her entrance. Her grandmother lay senseless 
upon the floor and her grandfather lay dead against the 
cushions of his chair. In an instant there was unspeak- 
able confusion. Mrs. Clarence went into violent hys- 
terics and her children filled the air with theirshrieks and 
cries of horror. The nurse was nowhere to be found, and 
Mr. Clarence, with blood-shot eyes and quaking limbs, 
wandered from room to room, up-stairs, down-stairs, 
everywhere but to the library, where that awful Presence 
lay, or rather sat bolt upright against the cushions of the 
chair in which Henry Bragg had met his doom. The 
terrible outcry in the Clarence household soon arrested 
the attention of passers-by. They called in to investigate 
its origin and find Henry Bragg a livid corpse and his 
wife in a condition of insensibility. She was taken into 
another room, when the panic had subsided sufificiently 
to give the excited crowd an opportunity to do some- 
thing, but he Vvas left untouched for the inquest, it having 
been ascertained by the family physician, who chanced 
to be one of the callers-in, that he was quite dead. There 
was a wound upon his temple which had bled profusely, 
and his watch and purse were missing. “ Murdered by 


A WATCH-KEY. 


247 


some strolling tramp, who had broken in through the 
open window, seeing the tempting opportunity,” was 
everybody’s mental verdict, upon the impulse of the 
moment ; and he, the unknown criminal, ought to be 
looked up immediately before he had effected his escape. 

Early the next morning the inquest was held. Mean- 
time, nothing had been seen of the missing nurse, but it 
had been ascertained that she had left Milledgeville in 
company with a follower of hers, a man of very disrepu- 
table character, on the night of the murder. Every 
room in the house had been robbed, a great many valua- 
bles taken, and the robbers had escaped with all their 
booty. 

In the dead man’s hand, clinched hard in the death- 
grip, was found a watch-key and piece of detached chain, 
blit they were at once identified as the property of Mr. 
Clarence, which he had left behind him, in his father-in- 
law’s cliarge, before going out to the Bill Arp lecture. “ I 
handed them to the deceased,” Mr. Clarence testified at 
the inquest, “ before going out last night, and asked him 
to take care of them for me. They were nearly detached 
from the other portion of the chain, and I was afraid of 
losing them.” The jury accepted this explanation. They 
found a verdict of “death by violence,” and warrants 
were issued for the arrest of Harriet Sims, the missing 
nurse, and her follower, John Billings, public opinion 
having settled down upon them as the presumable rob- 
bers and murderers. But they were nowhere to be found. 
The country was scoured for them to no purpose. Meaiir 
time, Mrs. Bragg lay violently ill, and Milledgeville genr 
erally was in a condition of effervescent exciternent. 

Mrs. Wilson was frightened nearly out of her wits. 
She had triple bolts put upon ^11 the doors, and sat up 


248 


A WATCH-KEY. 


nearly every night, until after midnight, watching for 
burglars. 

“ Emily,” she said to her niece, a few days after the 
murder, when that young lady and herself were seated 
together in the sitting-room, “ this is getting to be simply 
unbearable. We will be murdered in our beds yet. 
Everybody knows you have a fortune in jewels and plate 
about the house, and, the next thing you know, we will 
be burglarized and murdered too.” 

“ I hope not. Aunt Mary. You hardly ever hear of 
any two occurrences of that sort happening in succession 
in the same place. Your fears are groundless, I think.” 

“ I don’t know what you mean b)' groundless,” answered 
the old lady with considerable acerbity. “ We have had 
a near neighbor murdered in his own house for. portable 
valuables, worth not a whit more than those you keep 
constantly about you to the knowledge of everybody in 
Milledgeville. And we are two lone women. There 
ought to be a man about these premises,” said Mrs. Wil- 
son, energetically gesticulating. “A man is as necessary 
about a lot as a cat or a dog. Women were never 
intended, by God or Nature, to take care of themselves. 
The Almighty would never have made men, if women 
hadn’t needed their protection,” added the old lady, for- 
getful, in her excitement, of the Mosaic account of the 
order of creation. 

“ There were two men in the Clarence household,” sug- 
gested Miss Arrington. 

“And one of them — a helpless, old, rheumatic cripple — 
was murdered in the absence of the other f said Mrs. Wil- 
son, sententiously. “ Emily, you have vacillated long 
enough. There is really no sense in your taking so long 


A WATCH-KEY. ; 


. 249 


to make up your mind to marry Laurence Elliot, for 
that is what you will eventually have to do.” 

“ I am afraid I will,” answered her niece, with a lon^, 
painful sigh. “ Neither you nor he will let me alone, and 
I am such a poor, dependent creature.” 

“That you are, my dear — nobody more so. You are 
no more fit to take care of yourself, if I were to die and 
leave you now, than you would have been twenty years 
ago, when you were five years old. You have plenty of 
sense, of a certain sort — book sense, art sense, and the 
like — but you have no practical sense. Your very eyes 
could be cheated out of your head and you would never 
know it until your attention was called to the fact. As I 
have often told you, there is no material in your make-up 
for the composition of an old maid. You are one of the 
women who needs a husband as much as any child ever 
needed a nurse.” 

“ And you think Laurence Elliot the man for the posi- 
tion ? ” 

“I think he is the most eligible of all your suitors,” 
said Mrs. Wilson, matter-of-factly. “ What fault have 
you to find with him?” 

“None,” said her niece. “ I have made up my mind 
to marry him.” 

“ My dear,” said her aunt, going up to and embracing 
her, “ I am rejoiced from the bottom of my heart, and 
entirely for your own sake.” 

“ I believe I will go up to my room,” said Miss Arring- 
ton, rising. “ Please cut the leaves of this magazine for 
me, if you are doing nothing else.” 

She handed her aunt a copy of “ Scribners’ ’’ and then 
left the room. 

She went immediately up to her own chamber, and sat 


250 


A WATCH-KEY. 


down before its west window in a low cane rocker which 
was her favorite chair — sat down and thought. Thought 
of the Past which lay behind her, so idle and dreamy and 
uneventful, yet happy withal ; and of the Future which 
stretched before her, a vast unexplored continent of pos- 
sible joys and sorrows; of unknown associations and 
methods of life. She, Emily Arrington, was on the 
threshold of a new life — one altogether strange and differ- 
ent from that of her childhood and maidenhood ; one 
which would require of her, at the outset, a surrender of 
her individual tastes, feelings and personal inclinations; 
would require an absolute merging of her identity into 
that of another’s, even to the giving up of her very name. 
She would be Emily Arrington no longer. Would this 
new creature, this Emily Elliot (she could scarcely bring 
herself to pronounce the name, even in thought), be any- 
thing of an improvement upon the maiden whose suc- 
cessor she would be? Would she have the same aspira- 
tions, the same yearnings after the unattainable, the same 
loneliness and isolation of spirit that sometimes envel- 
oped Emily Arrington like a cloud? Would that cloud 
rest always between her and the man whose wife she had 
determined to be, as it had rested between her and all the 
world ? In spite of all her beauty, and all her talent, and 
all her gold and silver and lands, Emily Arrington was an 
isolated being. Friends (as Society defines the word) she 
had by the score, and lovers by the legion, vbut companions, 
not one. Hers had been a strangely introspective life — 
a life of dreams, and musings, and strange unworldly vis- 
ions and ideals. Into this sanctum of maidenhood a mas- 
culine foot was about to enter. Could she endure the 
intrusion — accept this commonplace man of the common- 
place world as a substitute for the hero of her dreams? 


A WATCH-KEY. 


251 


Must she lay aside these dreams — as a child lays aside its 
outgrown toys — and step down into the world of prosaic 
thought and feeling — a world bounded on all sides by 
actualities, and in which there is no place for that imagi- 
nation which is, of some natures, the larger and better 
part? There are some people for whom the world seems 
to have no place. They have not common-sense wisdom 
enough to play well their part in everyday life, nor yet 
genius enough to trace out for themselves a new orbit of 
thought, and feeling, and habit of life, apart from the 
world-worn track. Emily Arrington was of this unfor- 
tunate number. With all her gifts of fortune, she was 
not a woman to be envied. She was feeling this acutely — 
feeling that strange sense of mental isolation, as she 
meditated upon the new life upon whose threshold she 
now stood. It was a terrible wrench — this tearing herself 
away from the old life which was hers, and giving herself 
up to the new life which would be, partly, at least, 
another’s. And yet the world, life, society, demanded 
this sacrifice of her. “ You must come out of the shell 
of your individual life and merge yourself into that of 
another and representative life — must fall into line and 
do your duty as a social factor. You have lived long 
enough as an independent unit.” This was what a thou- 
sand voices were saying to her, and she had no argument 
wherewith to refute their logic. She had arrived at 
woman’s estate, and must put away childish things — the 
dreams, and visions, and fancies which had been her men- 
tal aliment since conscious mind had existed. Even as a 
child, Emily Arrington had been an idealist — a dreamer 
of dreams. Dreams were woven into the very warp and 
woof of her existence, and now she was bidden, by an 
inexorable necessity, to break off the glittering threads 


252 


A WATCH-KEY. 


of her idealistic visions, and weave for herself a more 
enduring vesture of solid substantialities. The prospect 
was not an alluring one. Instinctively she felt that, in 
stepping from the Ideal to the Real, she would be step- 
ping down. She saw herself in fancy, as the -wife of 
Laurence Elliot, coming down to lower, and yet lower, 
planes of thought and feeling — assimilating more closely, 
as the years went by, to. this man so different from her 
now in mental tone and fibre. The consequence was an 
inevitable one. We are chameleons, all, and reflect, to a 
great extent, the color of our surroundings, of our inti- 
mate associations. Emily Arrington had been without 
intimate associations, in a human sense, from her earliest 
childhood. She was that unfortunate being, an only 
child. There were no tender fraternal reminiscences stored 
away in her heart and woven into the texture of her 
memories. How she had envied the happy beings who 
owned such a mutual fund of retrospective delights ! 
What bliss it must be, thought the solitary girl, to look 
in the face of brother or sister and say, “ Do you remem- 
ber?” — to call up a thousand images of childish pleasure 
enjoyed in common ! There were an impecunious brother 
and sister in Milledgeville — a poor clerk he, a poorer 
teacher she — who passed Emily Arrington’s handsome 
brick mansion daily on their way to their round of work, 
and who had often looked at the heiress as they passed 
her by very much as they might have looked at a crowned 
queen, or some other exalted being, elevated as far above 
them in a worldly and social sense as the inhabitants of 
another sphere. And yet the heiress had watched that 
same pair, ofttimes through a mist of tears, as they chatted 
to each other affectionately of common hopes and mem- 
ories, no doubt — reviving childish recollections and look- 


A WATCH-KEY. 


253 


ing forward to a future whose pleasures the brother and 
sister weuld mutually share. They were commonplace 
people, very, but Emily Arrington had idealized their 
whole life for them ; had painted it in the vivid hues of 
her imagination, and steeped it in the light of that 
enchantment which can make even the poorest objects 
resplendent. They would never have recognized their 
portraits, this brother and sister, as they hung upon the 
walls of Emily Arrington’s fanciful brain. What a poem 
their life was, she thought. Ah! if Fate had just been 
kind enough to have given her one brother, just one, who 
could have been the protector she needed so much, and 
to whom she too could have said, “ Do you remember ” ! 

The sharp clang of the door-bell resounded suddenly 
through the house — one long peal and innumerable little 
dying tintinnabulations of sound. 

They were a rude shock to the girl whom they had 
awakened from her profound reverie — a painful one. 
Laurence Elliot’s voice, asking if Miss Arrington was 
in, was a still more painful one. She could not face the 
issue just then, she thought. With an impulse of flight, 
she seized her hat, which was lying in convenient dis- 
tance upon the dressing-table, and escaped, with it, down 
the rear stairway of the house and thence into the gar- 
den. She was not a moment too soon. A servant entered 
her room just as she had quitted it, and looked around 
surprisedly at her absence. 

“ She certainly come up here,” said the girl aloud, and 
then she descended the front staircase, meeting a fellow- 
servant upon the way of whom she inquired Miss Arring- 
ton’s whereabouts. 

“ I seen Miss Emily or her spirit gwine in the garden, 
about two minutes ago,” answered the girl interrogated. 


254 


A WATCH-KEY. 


But “Miss Emily” was not to be found in the garden 
when sought there. She stood happily concealed by a 
row of tall, waving corn stalks, and feeling very much 
like a truant child, while the servant’s shrill voice called 
“ Miss Emily ! Miss Emily ! ” — until that voice was 
exhausted. Its owner then returned to the house and 
informed Mr. Elliot that Miss Arrington was not to be 
found. “ Gone over to some of the neighbors,” she 
added, by way of gratuitous information. 

Thus Emily Arrington eluded her destiny one day 
longer. When the echo of Mr. Elliot’s steps had quite 
died away, and that gentleman himself — in not the best 
of humors — was retracing his steps down street, she 
emerged from her hiding-place and returned, by the same 
surreptitious route, to her room. She had been there 
scarcely a minute when the same servant who had been 
seeking her entered with a pitcher of water. She stopped 
midway the room in an attitude of astonishment. 

“ I ’dare ’fore gracious. Miss Emily, you’s a witch. Whar 
you ben all this time, anyway? I ben a lookin’ an’ a 
lookin’ — ” 

Clang ! went the door-bell again. 

This time it was Mr. Clavering, and Miss Arrington was 
at home. He wished to see her, as usual, upon a matter 
of business. 

“ About those mining shares,” he said, almost before 
greeting her. “ Do you wish to sell them ? ” 

“Yes or no, just as you think best,” she answered, as 
laconic as he, and then, when a slight pause ensued, she 
asked, “ Have there been any new developments in the 
murder case since the arrest of the fugitives?” 

“None whatever,” answered the lawyer. “At least 


A WATCH-KEY. 


255 


I have heard of none. I am on my way to the jail now,” 
he added ; “ this woman and man have sent for me.” 

“ You will be their counsel then ? ” 

“ I suppose so.” 

Miss Arrington hesitated a moment and then spoke. 
“ What is this,” she asked, “ about Mr. Clarence’s watch- 
key and chain being found in Mr. Bragg’s hand?” 

“ Mr. Clarence accounted for that quite naturally — 
testified, at the inquest, that, before leaving home for the 
lecture he attended that night, he left the key and pen- 
dant chain in his father-in-law’s charge.” A heavy cloud 
had settled upon Tunstall’s countenance. He was thinking 
of another watch-key, left in his charge that fateful night 
so many years ago. He would be the last man in the 
world to gainsay such a pie.ce of evidence. 

“Mr. Clavering” — Emily Arrington was looking up 
into his face with a very troubled expression upon her 
own — “ Mr. Clarence went back, you know, for his wife’s 
shawl, during the exercises at the lecture-room that 
night — ” 

“ Yes, but he went no further than the front-hall door,” 
said the lawyer, a little surprised — “ did not see his 
father-in-law at all. He testified at the inquest that he 
just opened the hall door, took the shawl from the hat- 
rack, which is within reaching distance, and came imme- 
diately away, without going into the house. Mr. Bragg 
may have been dead at that very time.” 

“ Mr. Clavering, Mr. Clarence’s watch-key became 
entangled in the fringe of my shawl, as he passed me on 
his way out after his wife’s shawl. I disentangled it 
myself.” 

The lawyer gave a quick start. After a moment’s 
reflection, he said : 


256 


A WATCH-KEY. 


“Say nothing about this to anybody — as a matter of 
precaution, you understand.” ^ 

And then he turned to leave, overthrowing, as he did 
so, a vase of flowers, from out which fell a spray of the 
same delicate heliotrope he had seen upon his brother’s 
grave. He recognized it instantly, and, turning to Emily 
Arrington with an expression she had never before seen 
upon his face, he said : 

“Thank you, and God bless you,” and then he was 
gone. 


A WATCH-KEY. 


257 


CHAPTER XXVIII. 

He went immediately to the jail, where Mrs. Clarence’s 
ex-nurse and her companion in guilt awaited him, both 
cowering in terror. The woman was quite hysterical. 

“ Oh ! Mr. Clavering,” she wailed. “ I did not see Mr. 
Bragg after I left him asleep in his chair, and neither did 
John, I know, for he was with me all the time.” 

“Before God, I was,” asseverated “John,” his teeth 
chattering like those of a man in an ague. 

Mr. Clavering took a seat upon the rude bed in the 
corner of the cell, and thus addressed the prisoners: 

“ You want me to appear for you, I suppose ? ” 

“Yes, sir,” was the simultaneous answer. 

“ Well, then, you must tell me the truth and the whole 
truth. I cannot consent to act blindfolded.” 

“ The lawyer is talking about right !” said the man, look- 
ing interrogatively at the woman. “Harriet, we had 
better ’fess up.” The woman remained silent and he 
continued speaking. “ We robbed the house,” he said. 
“Tm ’bleeged to own up to that, but we didn’t touch Mr 
Bragg.” 

“ How did you get his watch and chain and his purse ? ” 

“We never got ’em.” 

“Be particular now,” said the lawyer. “ Remember I 
want the truth, and it is your best policy to tell it to me.” 

“ That’s exactly what I’m doin’, Mr. Clavering,” said 
the man, who had assumed the spokesmanship for both 
himself and the woman. “ I used to hang ’round nights,” 
he said, “ to see Harriet, and cotch glimpses, more’n once, 
of the dinin’-table with all the silver and stuff that was 


258 


A WATCH-KEY. 


on it, and then I heerd Harriet talking about the ladies 
havin’ of so much fine jewelry — diamonds and the like — 
but I never thought about hookin’ ’em till that night. 
They were all gone but Mr. Bragg, and Miss Bragg she 
had forgot the keys and lef ’ ’em behind her, and the devil 
temptod me an’ I said to myself : ‘ John, you’ll never have 
another such a chance. You kin make this big grab and 
git away from here, on the night train, before anybody 
gits back.’ An’ I spoke my mind to Harriet and she. 
agreed with me, ’an we just grabbed up Mr. Clarence’s 
valise, that was settin’ ’round handy, and filled it with 
whatever we could find that was worth carrying off, and 
then made tracks for the depot. We jumped off the 
train at a little side station, and made for the woods, 
thinking to stay there quiet till they had give up lookin’ 
for us.” 

“You might have known you would have been caught 
eventually,” said Mr. Clavering ; “ but I want to know 
positively, as you value your life, did you, or did you not, 
interfere with Henry Bragg?” 

“ I would swear on a stack of bibles as high as this 
house,” said the man, excitedly, “ that I never seed Mr. 
Bragg at all that night. Harriet seed him, an’ she said he 
was settin’ up asleep in his cheer. I’m a bad man, Mr. 
Lawyer, but I aint never killed nobody. I’m too feerd 
of gho.sts.” 

There was a ring of sincerity in the man’s voice which 
did not escape the lawyer’s keen observation. 

The woman spoke up here. 

“John,” she said, “don’t you remember we heerd Mr. 
Bragg a movin’ about just as we run away — sounded like 
he’d knocked over somethin’ an’ it skeered us an we run ? ” 

“Yes,” said “John,” “ I do remember it,” 


A WATCH-KEY. 


259 


After a little further conversation to the same effect, 
Tunstall Clavering left the jail and returned to his law 
office. A neighbor and client awaited him there— one 
Mr. Persons, a reliable dry-goods merchant of Milledge- 
ville. He had just returned from a commercial trip, 
upon which he had set out the morning after the murder. 

“ I have just read an account in the papers,” he said, 
after the usual greetings, “of this terrible affair. But 
what is this about Theodore Clarence’s watch-key being 
found in the murdered man’s hand?” 

Almost Emily Arrington’s very words. 

“ He says that he left them in his father-in-law’s charge, 
before setting out for the lecture that night,” said Mr. 
Clavering, answering Mr. Persons much as he had 
answered Miss Arrington. 

“There is a mistake somewhere,” said Mr. Persons, 
shaking his head, “ for I stood at the entrance of the 
lecture-room that night,, waiting my turn, while Mr. 
Clarence was settling with the door keeper (he got in just 
ahead of me), and I could swear that I saw his watch key 
dangling from the little piece of pendant chain as he 
stood in front of me counting out his change.” 

“ Mr. Clarence must be arrested,” said Mr. Clavering 
quietly, “and this matter seen into.” 

“ Bless my soul !” said Mr. Persons, who was rather a 
nervous man, “don’t use my name in the matter. 1 don’t 
reckon it is worth while to arrest him. He never could 
have done it, you know.” 

“That is exactly what I want to ascertain.” 

“ But don’t — don’t use my name in the business.” 

“This is a matter of conscience, Mr. Persons,” said the 
obstinate lawyer. “Would you let an innocent man and 


26 o 


A WATCH-KEY. 


woman hang,” he said, a stern expression coming over his 
face, “to save yourself from a little embarrassment ?” 

“No, no,” said Mr. Persons hurriedly. “ I hope I will 
do what is right always. But I am sure Mr. Clarence 
will be able to explain this matter satisfactorily.” 

“ I hope so,” said Tunstall Clavering, and then the two 
gentlemen parted, and in less than thirty minutes there- 
after Theodore Clarence was under arrest. Mr. Persons 
and Miss Arrington were subpoenaed to appear at his 
examination. 

Mrs. Wilson nearly went into hysterics over the sum- 
mons, and Miss Arrington was quite shocked. She turned 
quite pale when the officer handed the paper to her, but 
she was a woman who usually made very little exhibition 
of emotion of any kind. 

“ I suppose there is no help for it. Aunt Mary,” she 
began, when that lady volubly interrupted her. 

“ I think it is shameful of Mr. Clavering,” she said, 
“ for this is every bit his work, I know. It is the most 
high-handed thing I ever heard of in my life — dragging 
you around to his law office, when you don’t even go 
there on your own business. Mr. Clavering must be 
crazy.” 

That gentleman himself appeared at this juncture, 
coming up the front steps. He came directly forward 
into the hall, where the two were standing, and said to 
Miss Arrington : 

“ I am very sorry, indeed, to distress you in this way ” 
(he saw that she was dissressed, for her lips were quiver- 
ing) ; “ but there is really no alternative. It is a question 
of life and death, you know,’’ he added gravely, and she, 
looking up into his face, saw the shadow of a great pain 
resting there. 


A WATCH-KEY. 


261 

“ I will go with you,” she said, quietly, “ if it is neces- 
sary.” 

“ It is necessary,” he said. 

“ I shall go, too, if you are going,” said Mrs. Wilson. 
“ I will be down again,” she said, turning toward the 
stairway, “ as soon as I can put on my bonnet and shawl. 

Miss Arrington’s were in more convenient reach, were 
upon the hat-rack in the hall. She put them on imme- 
diately and sat down to await her aunt’s coming. The 
constable had taken his departure a few minutes previous. 
Tunstall Clavering looked at the beautiful, sensitive face, 
and all the chivalry of his nature, so long buried, rose up 
to the surface. “ She is a beautiful creature,” he thought, 
“ and an exquisitely sensitive one. This is quite an ordeal 
to her.” 

“ Don’t be alarmed,” he said, going up to her and speak- 
ing in a reassuring voice. “ It is not nearly so terrible as 
you think ; only a matter of answering a few questions. 
It will soon be over.” 

Here Mrs. Wilson’s step was heard upon the stair and 
that lady joined them in a state of towering indignation. 

The trio set forth and soon arrived at Tunstall Claver- 
ing’s law office, where Theodore Clarence, his lawyer and 
other witnesses were already assembled. The examina- 
tion proved to be a very lengthy one and resulted in the 
defendant’s committal. The case was also decided not to 
be a bailable one, and Theodore Clarence, the plutocrat 
of Milledgeville, slept that night in Milledgeville jail. 

Milledgeville went simply crazy with excitement, which 
culminated on the third day after the examination, when 
it became generally known that Theodore Clarence had 
made a confession. It appeared with a sensational head- 
ing in the columns of the Milledgeville “ Recorder,” and 


262 


A WATCH-KEY. 


was greedily devoured by everybody. This is what the 
Milledgevillians read in the “ Recorder” of June the 2d, 
1902 : 

“ CONFESSION OF THEODORE CLARENCE ! 

“HIS CAREER OF CRIME AND SUCCESSFUL CONCEALMENT THEREOF FOR 
FIFTEEN YEARS ! 

“ READ ON ! 

“STARTLING DEVELOPMENTS AHEAD. 

“ I have determined to make a clean breast of every- 
thing and tell the truth at last,” the confession began 
abruptly. “ In the first place, I killed Henry Bragg, after 
provocation enough to have made a man commit a dozen 
murders. He persecuted me for fifteen years, by virtue 
of a secret of mine which had been in his possession for 
that length of time. He discovered, soon after my mar- 
riage to his daughter, by means unnecessary to detail here, 
that I had suppressed the last will and testament of my 
uncle, John Hildegard, whose estates I would legally have 
inherited in the event of his dying intestate. I was 
Henry Bragg’s slave from the hour he made that discov- 
ery. Notwithstanding the fact that he profited by my 
villainy quite as much as I did myself, he was constantly 
threatening to betray me. I lived under a suspended 
sword always. My tormentor gave me no peace of my 
life. His was one of those vindictive natures that must 
hate somebody, and I was a pack-horse for all the malevo- 
lence with which he abounded. Matters culminated 
when, on the evening of the murder, my uncle’s legatee, 
a Mr. Lovelace, turned up. He came up to my house 
and showed Henry Bragg and myself a letter written to 


A WATCH-KEY. 263 

him by my uncle on the day of the latter’s death, and con- 
taining mention of the will I had suppressed. 

“After Mr. Lovelace had left us,” the confession went 
on, “ Henry Bragg declared his intention of selling me 
out to that gentleman if I didn’t make over to him 
in fee-simple about three-fourths of all my property. 
This I should have been cowardly enough to have done, 
if I had not feared the public inquiry which such an 
insane proceeding would have provoked. I agreed, how- 
ever, to consider the matter, and had about determined 
to gather up what I could in cash and flee the country, 
when my doom came upon me in this wise : 

“As everybody is aware, my family, with the exception 
of Henry Bragg and. the younger children, all attended 
the Bill Arp lecture on the night of the murder. As is 
also well known, my wife requested me, soon after the 
beginning of the exercises, to return home for her shawl. 
I started back for no other purpose, as God is my wit- 
ness, than that of getting this shawl, when the Devil 
threw an opportunity into my hands and I used it to my 
eternal undoing. I had forgotten, on leaving the lecture- 
room, to provide myself with the night-key, and so, upon 
reaching home, went around to the back of the house to 
attract Henry Bragg’s attention, so that he might let me 
in at the back door. The night was very dark. As I 
passed the kitchen window I heard voices conversing in 
that low, guarded tone which would attract anybody’s 
attention at such a time and place. I stopped under a 
window to listen, and soon overheard enough fragments 
of conversation to learn that our house had been robbed 
by our nurse and her follower. I stumbled over some 
object in my haste to get away and give the alarm, and 
with that the man and woman fled precipitately. As has 


264 


A WATCH-KEY. 


been subsequently ascertained, they went at once to the 
depot and boarded the first passing train. My first 
impulse was to consult with Henry Bragg as to what 
should be done under the circumstances, and for that 
purpose I entered the house, the back door of which had 
been left open by the burglars in their flight. Upon 
entering the library, I found Henry Bragg sleeping, with 
his head thrown back upon the cushions of his chair. 
Near him was a box of croquet impleme;its, one of whose 
heavy mallets lay uppermost in tempting reach. The 
Devil whispered to me : ‘ Now is your opportunity. The 
house has been robbed, and public opinion will leap to 
the conclusion that the robbers have likewise been the 
murderers of Henry Bragg, if you put an end to him 
now with this mallet which lies so ternptingly at hand. 
You will then be a free man. This human devil who has 
mocked and persecuted you for fifteen years will be for- 
ever silenced, and he deserves his fate.’ I was not long 
in carrying out my inspiration. I gave Henry Bragg a 
crushing blow with the croquet mallet, which was aimed 
at his temple, but which fell a little short of it, and, 
therefore, did not kill him instantly, as I had intended. 
There was enough life left in him to make a desperate 
resistance. He closed in with me and I choked him to 
death. In the struggle, I suppose he must have detached 
my key and chain, which were afterwards found in his 
hand, but I was unaware of the fact at the time, and 
afterwards, when I possessed myself of his watch and 
purse, to give the affair still more the aspect of a burglary. 
I have known that detection was coming ever since that 
key was found. That key has been my doom. It is my 
retribution for one other death for which I am account- 
able, and which has lain upon my conscience for fifteen 


A WATCH-KEY. 


265 


years. I have been a most miserable man for all those 
years. I have never gotten over Tillet Clavering’s death, 
for I am the man for whom he was mistaken. I was Lydia 
Mason’s husband, but not her murderer. Before God, I 
am innocent of her death, in proof of which assertion I 
will herewith give to the public, as far as I am acquainted 
with them, the particulars of her last hours. 

“ We were privately married, Florence Lydia Mason and 
myself, in South Carolina the summer before her death. 
The marriage was clandestine on account of my uncle’s 
violent opposition to it. I was then, more or less, depend- 
ent upon him, and consequently afraid to brave his anger ; 
he was in a low state of health, too — in a r.ipid decline, as 
everybody thought — and I concluded it would be best to 
wait until after his death to make our marriage public. 
While I never expected to be his heir, still he often 
assisted me pecuniarily in his ungracious way, and as I 
needed such assistance very much, I couldn’t afford to 
put myself entirely beyond the pale of it. I therefore 
enjoined upon Lydia the strictest secrecy, and matters 
drifted on until I met Ellen Bragg and her mother at 
Oaktown. Both women besieged me ; I had, b\’ that time, 
tired of Lydia — was out of money and in a mood to do 
anything, especially anything that promised to better my 
fortunes pecuniarily ; this I thought a marriage with 
Ellen Bragg would do, as she passed in Oaktown for a 
great heiress. Before I knew it I was engaged to her, 
and, of course, had to throw poor Lydia overboard. I 
was enabled to do this with impunity, as .she had no 
proofs of our marriage, the magistrate who married us 
having died of heart disease a few hours subsequently, and 
his wife and daughter, the only other witnesses, having 
emigrated to the far West the following November. 

12 


266 


A WATCH-KEY. 


This, in conjunction with the burning of the L county 

records, placed her completely in my power, and I was 
dastard enough to use that power — to repudiate her and 
marry another woman. She was frantic at this of course, 
and on the eve of my marriage with Ellen Bragg wrote 
me a menacing letter commanding me to meet her in 
Richmond. This I consented to do under an alias, she 
assuming one also. We had our last interview in the 
little pavilion overlooking the reservoir in which her dead 
body was afterwards found, in which interview, I am 
ashamed to say, I treated her most brutally- — told her, in 
cold blood, that all evidence of the marriage had been 
destroyed, and I proposed to act as if it had never 
existed — to repudiate her, in short. She took matters 
very quietly — too quietly, as I afterwards remembered — 
for, on returning to the pavilion after a short absence there- 
from (I had gone out in quest of a carriage, a furious rain- 
storm having come up) I found her missing. I believed 
then that she had thrown herself into the reservoir in a 
fit of hysterical emotion. I believe it now, although 
the prints of a heavy brogan shoe, found near the pavil- 
ion, indicate the possibility of her having been set upon, 
by some strolling tramp, and murdered. Be that as it 
may, Tillet Clavering was innocent of the deed ; and yet 
I allowed him to be hung for a watch-key, just as I, 
myself, will now be hung for one. Such a coincidence 
cannot be a simple accident. I say again it is a retribu- 
tion. 

“ I am a less miserable man, now that I have made this 
confession, than I have been for years, although I have 
no hope of mercy at the hands of that law which I have 
so long and so successfully defied. 

“ Theodore Clarence, 

“ Milledgeville Jail, June 25, 1902.” 


A WATCH-KEY. 


267 


The effect of this confession upon the public sentiment 
of Milledgeville simply exceeds description. A subscrip- 
tion paper was at once gotten up and carried around for 
the erection of a monument over Tillet Clavering's grave. 
Tunstall Clavering received letters of congratulation from 
the highest magnates in the land — from United States 
Senators and Governors of States — and pyramids of flowers 
were banked daily upon his martyred brother’s grave. 

Tunstall Clavering broke down and wept like a child 
when the above confession was made known to him. 
The first intimation he had of it was from Emily Arring- 
ton. He had called to see her about some trivial matter, 
when she met him with the “ Recorder ” in her hand. 
Her face was transfigured. The Angel of the Annuncia- 
tion could not have been more lovely, Tunstall Clavering 
thought, than she was when she placed that paper in his 
hands. 

“ Have you seen it?” she asked in a tremulous voice. 

“ Seen what ? ” 

And then she placed the paper in his hands, and when 
he had read it he broke down like a child. She broke 
down likewise and they wept in unison. 

“ I shall never forget that cross and crown,” he said, 
looking into her swimming eyes for a moment, as he 
held her hand in parting. “ It is more to me than all the 
flowers and monuments they can ever pile upon my poor 
Tillet’s grave. If you could look into my heart you 
would see how I thank you for it.” 

And the heiress answered him nothing, for the “climb- 
ing sorrow ” in her throat made her dumb. 


268 


A WATCH-KEY. 


CHAPTER XXIX. 

When he had gone, when the last echo of his departing 
footsteps had died away in the distance, she sat down 
where he had left her and thought. How noble looking 
he was! How different from the rank and file of men, 
from Laurence Elliot in particular! How insignificant 
that gentleman looked beside him — how self-conscious! 
It was impossible to imagine two men more unlike, more 
diametrically opposite in every physical and mental par- 
ticular. And their fortunes had been as diverse. The 
one had been cradled in the arms of Prosperity, the other 
had drained life’s bitterest lees. What a life Tunstall 
Clavering had lived for fifteen years ! What a forlorn 
look there was about his home and surroundings! All 
the woman in Emily Arrington had been touched to the 
core by the neglected, uncared-for look of his law office 
on the day she entered it as a witne.ss in the murder rase. 
And that was his home ! In sickness and in health, those 
grim law books were his only companions — they and his 
memories. She had pictured it all — this vivid dreamer — 
the dreary going forth in the morning, the cheerless com- 
ing home again at night. She saw, as in a mirror, the 
arid waste of years which stretched behind this man and 
before. No home, no hearthstone, no woman’s tender 
ministries. The great unbidden tears started in Emily 
Arrington’s eyes. The great choking sobs rose up in her 
throat. Her tender heart dissolved in pity for this deso- 
late man, the shadow of whose sorrow had fallen athwart 
the sunlight of her own life even when she was a little 
child. 


A WATCH-KEY. 


269 


Charlotte Bronte has well defined Pity as “the suffer- 
ing mother of Love.” Woman’s love is born of pity 
ofttimes. Indeed, there is no true love into which that 
divine spirit of sympathy, compassion, pity — call it what 
you will —does not enter. We never perfectly love that 
which we do not likewise pity. And who upon this sor- 
rowful earth is superior to pity — is beyond the need of 
its tender ministrations? Who of us has not an aching 
head or an aching heart, or some other diseased and suf- 
fering physical or mental member, which only a pitying 
love can medicine? The divine love and pity are 
inseparables, and so are human love and pity. We 
cannot even love a regnant God without the memory of 
the crown of thorns. The pierced hands and bleeding 
side were necessary to call forth that deep tenderness in 
our human natures without which love cannot exist. 
The poet tells us that — 

“ Pity is love ■when grown into excess.” 

Emily Arrington has made that discovery on her own 
account at last. She has looked into her heart and read 
there the true nature of her feelings for Tunstall Claver- 
ing. She knows now that she does love him, and that 
she never can love Laurence Elliot. 

“ I must tell him so without further delay,” she thinks, 
and simultaneous with the thought is the peal of the 
door-bell. 

Mr. Elliot was ushered in a moment later. 

There was a jaunty air about him as he came into the 
room, very strikingly in contrast with the sad and quiet 
dignity of the man who had just gone out of it. P'or 
the life of her, Emily Arrington could not help contin- 
ually contrasting the two men, their points of dissimili- 


270 


A WATCH-KEY. 


tude were so salient. Tunstall Clavering never seemed 
conscious of his own personality at all, while Laurence 
Elliot’s very wearing apparel seemed conscious of the 
form it invested. He was not a dude or a fop by any 
means — was, on the contrary, a man of more than average 
intelligence and worldly wisdom ; but he was, first and 
foremost, Laurence Elliot. There was no earthly emotion 
powerful enough to lift him, for an instant, out of the 
self-absorption, in which he lived and moved and had his 
being. Emily Arrington had come as near doing it as 
was possible. Laurence Elliot’s love and admiration 
for her was the next thing to his egotism. He loved and 
admired her a degree less than he did himself, and he 
had come for her final answer to his suit. 

She was absolutely cowardly about giving it to him. 
Not that there was any further vacillation in her mind or 
feelings, but she shrank from inflicting the blow which 
she knew would fall so heavily upon the man’s egotism. 
He had positively provided himself with a ring, a hand- 
some solitaire diamond. When she saw that, Emily 
Arrington’s courage failed her. Had she indeed given 
him encouragement enough for that ? she asked herself, 
reproachfully, as Laurence Elliot drew out the glittering 
emblem from its crimson-velvet case. Without a word, 
he extended his hand for hers, which she instinctively 
withdrew. 

Laurence Elliot turned white to the lips. 

“ What do you mean ? ” he asked. 

“ O, Mr. Elliot ! I cannot marry you,” cried the girl, 
desperately. “You know I only consented to take fur- 
ther time to consider the matter — ” 

“You do not mean that you have been deliberately 
trifling with me all this time ! I cannot believe it of 


A WATCH-KEY. 


27 


you,” said Laurence Elliot, passionately. “ Oh ! consider 
what you are doing.” 

“ I have considered too long already. It would have 
been better if you had accepted my first decision — better 
for us both.” 

“ How entirely I have been deceived in you,” said 
the rejected suitor, rising, in a white heat of passion, from 
his chair — “ how completely you have taken me in ! You 
are the first woman who ever accomplished that feat, Miss 
Arrington, and, let me add, you will also be the last. I 
shall never again pay the slightest attention to a woman’s 
plighted word.” 

“ What plighted word — ” began Miss Arrington, when 
Mr. Elliot interrupted her, almost rudely. 

“You will claim that you were not plighted to me, of' 
course,” he said wrathfully. “And perhaps you were 
not — verbally. But what of looks, and tones, and those 
thousand nameless vehicles of encouragement by which 
women like you draw a man on until- -” 

“ You have said enough, Mr. Elliot,” said Miss Arring- 
ton, rising, with a hauteur she seldom displayed to any 
one. “ Allow me to suggest that this interview has lasted 
quite long enough.’* 

“ I have no desire whatever to prolong it,” said Mr. 
Elliot, and, with the stiffest of bows, he made his exit 
from the room and the house. 

“ Emily, what have you done?” 

It was Mrs. Wilson’s voice which fell, in accents of 
reproach, upon her niece’s ear. She had been passing 
through the hall and had caught, through the open par- 
lor door, the concluding passages of the dialogue just 
related. 

“Aunt Mary ! just please don’t say anything now ! ” 


2/2 


A WATCH-KEY. 


Emily Arrington pushed her aunt upon a sofa near. by, 
threw herself upon it beside her and burst into tears, with 
her head upon Mrs. Wilson’s shoulder. It was such an 
altogether unprecedented thing for Emily Arrington to 
cry that Mrs. Wilson was quite disconcerted. She 
scarcely knew what to do or say. But her niece soon 
spared her the necessity of doing or saying anything, by 
recovering herself speedily and leaving the room. She 
was naturally a very reticent woman— one who shrank 
instinctively from any exhibition of an inner feeling. 
With all her keen sensibility and idealistic sentimenr, she 
was the furthest in the world from what is generally 
understood as “ a sentimental woman.” No one would 
ever have dreamed of applying the expression to her. 
Sentiment, in her case, was as far removed from senti- 
mentality (so-called) as is the North from the South pole. 
She was not a woman to fancy herself a heroine, or to 
pose for any part whatsoever. Her very day-dreams were, 
for the most part, impersonal. The woman, Emily 
Arrington — in her own proper person — figured very little 
in them. They were mostly ideal views of life, and men, 
and things, quite apart from her individual existence. 
Nothing was more distasteful to her than any public 
prominence given, in any way, to her personal thoughts 
and feelings. She had not a confidante in the world. 
There was no living being to whom she could have 
unbosomed herself fully and freely. A more complete 
antipode of the gushing young lady can scarcely be 
imagined than was Emily Arrington, and for that very 
reason she had little in common with persons of her own 
age and sex. Her very thoughts were written in an 
unknown language to them — would have required a 
translation to the “girl of the period.” And there are 


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273 


thoughts which no words can translate, which must be 
spiritually discerned, or discerned not at all, and of 
which the ordinary man or woman has, and can have, no 
conception beyond that of the coarsest caricature. Emily 
Arrington’s mind was a treasury of just such thoughts, 
but a locked treasury of which she, and "she alone, kept 
the key. Laurence Elliot, if she had married him, would 
never have crossed its threshold. The episode which had 
just transpired with him was inexpressibly painful to her. 
She resented indignantly the distorted conception of her- 
self which was his present idea of her. That any living 
mortal man could dream, for an instant, that she would 
stoop from her lofty altitude of womanly dignity to 
“ take him in ” was inexpressibly humiliating to a woman 
as proud and reticent as Emily Arrington. No woman 
living ever held more tenaciously to her prerogatives of 
sex than did she, and it was her inalienable prerogative 
to conjugate the verb, to woo, in the passive voice 
always — to be the dignified recipient of, never an impor- 
tunate mendicant for, the homage of the other sex. She 
could as easily have solicited a man for his purse as for 
his “ attentions.” She was one of the women upon 
whom Nature had so stamped the seal of sovereignty 
that she could not even imagine herself in the attitude 
of a subject. Men were her vassals or they were nothing. 
As for this strange, new feeling which had crept so insid- 
iously into her heart, it was a thing apart — not to be 
mentioned in the same connection with other kinds of 
love or liking. It was, as nearly as possible, a disinter- 
ested feeling — a sort of passion of sympathy which not 
one woman in a thousand would have been capable of com- 
prehending, far less of entertaining. Only a woman as 
unworldly as Emily Arrington could have entertained it. 


274 


A WATCH-KEY. 


There was scarcely an alloy of self in its composition, 
save in so far as it affected self vicariously. No common- 
place ideas of love or marriage were in juxtaposition 
with the idea of Tunstall Clavering in Emily Arrington’s 
mind at all. He was set apart, by his supreme misfortune, 
from all ordinary associations and relations. She had 
admired and pitied him so long upon this pedestal of iso- 
lation, that Love had crept in unawares — a strange, tender, 
pitying Love, whose aliment was tears and whose existence 
was one of vicarious suffering. 

And his feelings for her were of an equally anomalous . 
nature. As she sat thinking of him in the sanctum of 
her tastefully-appointed chamber, he was also thinking of 
her in his dreary bachelor quarters. She had been lately 
born into his world — that narrow, cheerless world of 
arduous toil and sorrowful memories, which had consti- 
tuted Tunstall Clavering’s life for fifteen long years. To 
the door of this mental prison-house, Emily Arrington 
had come like a heavenly visitant. Tunstall Clavering 
would never forget that she had been literally his Angel 
of the Annunciation — that it was from her hand that he 
had received the announcement which cleared away the 
cloud of shame from his beloved brother’s memory. And 
that cross and crown — they had become a part of his 
memory, too, and of his passionate, undying gratitude. 
Men like Tunstall Clavering are slow in everything, but 
they are proportionately strong. They develop slowly in 
mind and heart and body, but powerfully as well. They 
strike deep root, whenever they strike root at all, and a 
vigorous gratitude had taken steadfast root in Tunstall 
Clavering’s heart for this woman who, out of the pleni- 
tude of her richly endowed life, had offered to him in his 
sorrowful loneliness, not the alms of a contemptuous pity, 


A WATCH-KEY. 


275 


but the royal contribution of a tender and delicate sym- 
pathy. How beautiful she was, he thought, in mind, as 
well as body! And how long he had been in discovering 
j it ! From a little child he had known her, and yet he 
had not known her until very recently. She had been 
' merely a name to him and the representative of certain 
moneyed interests, until he had suddenly awakened to 
i the knowledge that she was, within herself, more than 
I gold or houses or lands — a woman in ten thousand. 

So deeply was he absorbed in these meditations that a 
knock for admission at his office door had to be repeated 
several times. 

“ Come in,” he said, at last, and the jailer of Milledge- 
ville entered with a voluminous-looking document in his 
hand which he extended to Tunstall Clavering without 
a word, taking leave immediately thereafter. It was a 
I letter from the prisoner, Theodore Clarence, and ran thus : 

“ Milledgeville Jail, June 25, 1902. . 

''Tunstall Clavering : You may think it a great imperti- 
nence on my part to address you by letter, but I have no 
' other means of communicating with you, and I am 

j anxious that you should know the truth, and the whole 

1' truth, in regard to my connection, through Lydia Mason, 
with your brother’s death. I will say just here, I will 
even swear it, that no living being suffered more in con- 
sequence of that death than did 1 . I have lived in a hell 
of remorse ever since ; and I would have done anything, 
short of putting myself in his place, to have averted 
Tillet Clavering’s execution. To the last, I did not 
believe that his sentence would be carried out — that a 
man would be absolutely hung, in a civilized community, 
upon such evidence as was trumped up against him. 

■!* 

■ 

'■\s 


276 


A WATCH-KEY. 


The sum and substance of it all was the finding, near the 
scene of the supposed murder, of a watch-key that was 
never proved to be his, but which accidentally fitted his 
watch (as it might have accidentally fitted yours or mine), 
and the producing of a note by the hotel clerk, who 
couldn’t make out its address, but which was presumed, 
by the aid of a great deal of imagination, to be T. J. 
Clavering. It was, in reality, T. J. Clarence. The name 
was perfectly legible to me, and I trembled when I saw 
it — trembled for fear it would be legible to some one else 
also. That note I have never been able to understand. 

I was in Richmond under an alias, as Lydia very well 
knew, and why she addressed this note to me, under my 
own proper name, I do not at all understand, unless she 
did it with a view of directing suspicion towards me in the 
event of her suicide. She also wrote, without my knowl- 
edge, to her aunt, Mrs. Golding, and sent a message in 
that very letter to Tillet Clavering, calling him by name. 
This, of itself, would have proved, to any unbiased mind, 
the fact of his ignorance of her presence in Richmond, 
although he chanced to be there at the same time himself. 
But all the evidence for the defense was simply ruled out 
of court. The defense had no hearing, from first to last. 
I don’t believe a single man on that jury was satisfied of 
the fact that Lydia Mason was murdered. I repeat 
aga'.i, I do not believe that either the judge who sen- 
tenced, or the jury who convicted, Tillet Clavering, were 
absolutely convinced, in their own minds, that a murder 
had been committed. Neither am I. Lydia Mason, 
alienated from her friends and repudiated by her hus- 
band, had every inducement that a woman could have to 
take her own life ; and the conductor upon whose train 
she traveled on her last trip to Richmond, testified at 
Tillet Clavering’s trial that she expressed, in his hearing, 


A WATCH-KEY. 


277 


a desire for the cars to run off the track and kill her. 
But his testimony was set aside, as was all the testimony 
for the defense. It is, of course, possible that Lydia, 
after my p irLin;j^ with her at the pavilion, was murdered 
by some strolling vagabond. Such things happen every 
day. Her hat and shawl, which were found in different 
places, might have been thrown away by herself in a 
delirious frenzy, or by her murderer, if such a person 
existed. Of that, I know no more thah do you. 

“ I will state, in passing, that I first met Lydia Mason 
in Hanover County, Virginia. She was visiting there and 
I was staying temporarily at the old home-place. We 
met subsequently at other places. Time has in a great 
measure dulled my remorse for her wrongs and death, for 
she was, in some sort, particeps criminis in her own fate. 
But Tibet Clavering’s innocent death has laid a damning 
load upon my conscience for fifteen years. Again I sol- 
emnly swear that I should never have permitted it, if 
there had been any alternative but that of complete per- 
sonal sacrifice on my part. So violent was the condition 
of public excitement at the time that I should have been 
torn in pieces if I had then confessed. 

“ I do not ask you to forgive me. Man has his unpar- 
donable sins as well as God. Such have been mine against 
you and yours. THEODORE CLARENCE.” 


■'1 


278 


A WATCH-KEY. 


CHAPTER XXX. 

By a strange coincidence, January the 14th, 1903, the 
sixteenth anniversary of Tillet Clavering’s martyrdom, 
was appointed for the date of Theodore Clarence’s exe- 
cution. 

The doomed man had been very taciturn since his 
confession, almost doggedly so. He had declined the 
ministrations of all the clergymen in Milledgeville, refus- 
ing absolutely to converse confidentially with any one. 
His family had never visited him since his incarceration, 
not even his wife. She had turned with implacable 
hatred from the man who, however he had aggrandized 
in the past, had now so deeply humiliated her. Mrs. 
Bragg was dying. She had not entirely recovered from 
the shock of her husband’s death, when the arrest and 
imprisonment of Theodore Clarence prostrated her again 
and finally. But one of the children ever mentioned their 
father’s name, and that was the youngest girl, little three- 
year-old Annie. She was his favorite, and the only one 
of his children who had ever exhibited an atom of affec- 
tion for him. She would run to meet him in the evening, 
or after any period of absence, with demonstrations of 
childish affection which had become very dear to the 
wretched man — for a wretched man Theodore Clarence 
had been for fifteen years. And now they had forbidden 
her to mention his name, but she still prattled on to any 
who would listen to her of “ poor papa.” One evening 
she evaded the eyes of the household long enough to go 
to the green-house and provide herself with a lapfull of 
flowers. Bareheaded and unattended she made her escape 


A WATCH-KEY. 


279 

with these down a back street which led to the jail, to 
which she at once directed her steps. 

“Where is my papa?” she inquired of the jailer, who 
was just carrying in Theodore Clarence’s dinner. 

The good man nearly dropped the tray he was carrying, 
in his astonishment at sight of the little blue eyed, flower- 
laden creature who stood before him. In a moment, 
however, he regained his presence of mind and conducted 
the child to her father’s cell. He was sitting in an atti- 
tude of abstraction upon the foot of his rude bed, when 
the grating of the heavy door upon its hinges aroused 
him. The child sprang immediately into his arms, wind- 
ing her own little chubby ones around his neck and calling 
him by endearing names. 

“See, I have bringed you some fowers, papa,” she said. 
“ Won’t you tome home with me? My canary has dot 
some little wee birdies. You des ought to see ’em. You 
will tome, won’t you?” 

The miserable man groaned. The kind-hearted jailer had 
deposited the tray containing his frugal meal upon a pine 
table in the corner of the cell and immediately withdrawn. 
Theodore Clarence and his child — the one human thing 
that he loved and that loved him — were alone together. 
He took the dimpled baby face in his two hands and 
devoured it with his hungry eyes. To him it was as beau- 
tiful as an angel’s, and he had stamped it with eternal 
ignominy. Never would this lovely and beloved child 
hold up her head among other children, when once she 
was old enough to understand her father’s shameful his- 
tory. She would execrate his memory if she lived long 
enough, and he loved her — blood-dyed criminal though 
he was — how he loved her ! He would have gone to the 
ignominious death he had to die willingly if he could 


28 o 


A WATCH-KEY. 


but have wiped out the stigma from this beloved child’s 
future. That was the bitterest drop in the bitter cup 
he had to drain. And she would never know how he 
had loved her. She would be trained to loathe his very 
name. And yet how she clung to him now, with her 
affectionate childish prattle, kissing him, smoothing back 
the hair from his forehead, and bedecking him with the flov/- 
ers she had surreptitiously gathered for him. She pinned a 
tiny cluster of geranium leaves in the lapel of his coat 
and called on him to admire it. It was more than the 
miserable man could bear. He broke down and wept like 
a child. At this opportune moment the cell door opened 
and the jailer entered. 

“ Will you see Miss Herbert?” he asked of the pris- 
oner. 

“Yes; I will see her. She has not come to gloat over 
my misery, or to talk cant to me. I will see her.” 

When Miss Herbert entered the cell Theodore Clarence 
rose to his feet. In the depths of his degradation, he 
could not forget that she was a lady and he had been a 
gentleman. He offered her the one rude chair, which 
was all that he had to offer, and she took it with the same 
gentle dignity that she would have taken one in his ele- 
gant parlors. There was an infinite compassion in her 
beautiful, tender eyes. “ What can I do for you?” they 
seemed to ask in their mute eloquence. This man was a 
suffering fellow creature. Marian Herbert had forgotten 
all else. She said nothing just at first. She was afraid 
of saying something which might grate upon the miser- 
able man’s feelings. ' He divined hers and said to her : 

“You have come, I know, to do what you can for me. 
It is like you, but there is nothing you can do ; nothing 
anybody can do, unless they could blot out my memory 


A WATCH-KEY. 


281 


from the minds of men. Oh! if I could only do that — 
could only bear the consequences of my sin alone ! But 
this child, this tender, innocent child,” he repeated, look- 
ing at her in an anguish of despair, “will have to bear 
them all her life long. She will always be the daughter 
of the man who was hung, and I shall carry that knowl- 
edge to hell with me. My God ! it would make a hell of 
heaven.” Here the wild frenzy of his language fright- 
ened the child, and she ran crying to Miss Herbert, who 
received her with o})en arms. 

“You frighten her,” she said gently. 

“And I have worked her enough misery without that. 
She will have cause enough to weep when she is older. 
I might spare her now, and I will.” 

The wretched man composed himself with an effort 
and endeavored to quiet the child. He had just suc- 
ceeded in doing it when a servant came for her, her 
absence having been discovered and her whereabouts 
ascertained. 

The parting between father and child was a very affect- 
ing one. She clung to his neck and besought him to go 
home with her, until at last she was comforted with prom- 
ises and led away by the attendant, who had not deigned 
meanwhile to address a remark to the man so lately her 
master. He was a jail bird now, and entitled to nobody’s 
respect. 

“You are not as careful of your dignity as my cham- 
bermaid,” said the prisoner to Miss Herbert, when that 
functionary had taken her departure ; “ nor so afraid of 
contamination. I have no doubt she will use disinfectants 
when she gets home. I wonder she was ever prevailed 
upon to come to such a disreputable place.” 

Miss Herbert said nothing. Her tender, compassionate 


282 


A WATCH-KEY. 


eyes looked full into Theodore Clarence’s face for a mo- 
ment and then he spoke. 

“ No doubt you are thinking what a monster of deprav- 
ity I am,” he said, not sneeringly, nor yet bitterly, but in 
accents of profoundest despair ; “ but you don’t know what 
a chance in life I have had. If you will have the patience 
to listen to me, I will tell you something of my private 
history — tell you, remember, not the public.” 

“ I shall never repeat anything that you say to me,” 
said Miss Herbert quietly. 

“ I might have known that. Well, in the first place, 
my mother died when I was an infant, and my father 
soon married again — married a woman who cared neither 
for him nor for me. My half-brothers and sisters (they 
all died young) were reared to look upon me as an alien, 
and our home-life, in consequence, was full of discord. 
Miss Herbert, I never heard an affectionate word inter- 
changed by my father and his wife in all the fifteen years 
they lived together. They were too well-bred people, 
both of them, to wrangle vulgarly, but there was gall and 
wormwood in the heart of each for the other, and that 
became my idea of the conjugal relation. That husbands 
and wives ever really and truly loved each other I did not 
believe. I grew up a skeptic in regard to all kinds of 
love. It was a word, an idea, begotten of poetry and 
romance, but nowhere existing, as an absolute verity, in 
the real world. I could not believe in what I had never 
seen. Ah ! you, who have been surrounded from your 
birth by an atmosphere of love and religion, cannot 
understand what it is to have known neither ; to have been 
deprived in early life of faith in everything and every- 
body as I was. Miss Herbert, you were the first living 
being I ever believed in, and for a long time I looked 


A WATCH-KEY. 


283 


upon you as the queen of hypocrites. I regarded all 
your sweetness and loveliness as affectation. I thought 
you were posing for effect. Superficial as our acquaint- 
ance has been — meeting, as we have done socially, in only 
the most formal way — I yet have studied you deeply, 
and I have come to the conclusion that you are what you 
appear to be. If there were more women in the world 
like you, there would be fewer men like me. If my step- 
mother had been a woman like you — but what is the use 
of such hypotheses? She was what she was, and I am 
what I am — an outcast from God and man.” 

“ Who told you that you were an outcast from God ? ” 

“ Miss Herbert,^ I am a murderer, a double-dyed one. 
These hands ” — Theodore Clarence extended them before 
him and looked at them critically, until Miss Herbert 
could scarcely repress a shudder— “ these hands have 
taken human life, once absolutely, and twice in effect. I 
am Tillet Clavering’s murderer twice over. Ah! that is 
the ‘ damned spot ’ that will not ‘ out ’ — for which neither 
God nor man can or ought to forgive me.” 

“ Who are you, that you should presume to legislate 
for God? Mr. Clarence, do you love your little child, 
your little Annie, who was with you a. moment since?” 

"^Love her ! My God ! it was she who first taught me 
love. My other children never cared for me, nor I for 
them, nor for any other human thing, until she came, and 
she — God bless her ! — walked right straight into my poor, 
hard, sinful, wicked heart, and made herself at home 
there. And I have blighted her whole life, blasted it for 
all time ; and yet you talk to me of God’s forgiveness!” 

“And a little child shall lead them,” thought Miss Her- 
bert. And then she talked to him in a dialect I have no 
power to interpret, for it was the language of the angels. 


284 


A WATCH-KEY. 


which this heaven-taught woman had acquired during the 
years of her pilgrimage on earth — which she had learned 
at death-beds, and by couches of suffering, and in hours 
of secret communing with God, She talked to him in this 
heavenly dialect until his stony heart melted and then 
she left him, but, again and again, she came, until the 
last — until the day upon which Theodore Clarence ex. 
piated his career of crime upon the scaffold. He died 
more nobly than he had lived — died blessing Miss Her- 
bert. 

“ I can only see God through you,” he said to her in 
almost their last interview. “You are my mirror of 
faith and hope and love. If you are possible they are 
possible.” 

Ah ! how many of us do learn faith in God through faith 
in man ! And he, or she, who builds up our confidence 
in humanity — who so lives that we cannot but believe in 
him, or her — is God’s truest and best evangel. More 
powerful is such an incarnate sermon than all that were 
ever preached or written. Infidelity’s very self cannot 
refute the logic of such a concrete Christianity, nor does 
it attempt to do it. It expends its efforts upon abstrac- 
tions — upon theories and dogmas of religion — and so, 
alas! do we. With all our selfishness, we yet ignore 
that highest form of self-love which is our best and 
noblest attribute — which incites us to that self-culture 
which is our paramount earthly duty. Man’s first 
duty is to himself always. He recognizes that fact 
with very little difficulty, as applied to his bodily 
needs and gratifications, but of his obligations to 
the spark of divinity within him — to that God-commu- 
nicated soul, whose capabilities are beyond the ken even 
of angels--he is strangely oblivious of them. His relig- 
ion is too often a thing of creed and custom. He must 


A WATCH-KEY. 


285 


believe thus and so, and he must renounce thus and so. 
That he must also be something, he forgets — we all forget. 
We go on, day after day, slowly elaborating for ourselves 
a CHARACTER which will influence, not only our own 
personality, but the world around us, and yet we are as 
careless and unconscious about it — -as slovenly in our 
performance of this august life task — as if it were a matter 
of no moment. We never appreciate our careless 
workmanship, or are ashamed of it, until some rare piece 
of spiritual sculpture, some exquisite, carefully-wrought 
human character — if that can be called human which is 
half divine — is presented to our view. Ah ! how sorry 
our own work seems then! How roughhewn ! How 
unworthy to occupy even the humblest niche in God’s 
great moral universe! And we would never have known 
it — never have realized it — but for the contrast. And he 
who presents us, in his own person, with such a contrast — 
with such a hitherto unimagined ideal — is our truest 
benefactor. We need human, as well as divine, models, 
and the man or woman who serves us in that capacity 
has bequeathed to the world he lives in a legacy of ines- 
timable value — one which will take rank, in the eternal 
computation, above all the donations of houses, and 
moneys, and lands, that the philanthropists of all ages 
have ever contributed to the necessities of the indigent 
world. And it is so often one of God’s “little ones” who 
performs this gigantic work — some quiet, unpretentious 
soul, insignificant of bodily and mental presence ; and yet 
how potent in its influence upon the life and education of 
the great social world of which it is a component part. 
It is often the humblest head before which we have to 
bare our own in an involuntary humility. 


286 


A WATCH-KEY. 


CHAPTER XXXI. 

Six months have passed away since the occurrences 
related in the foregoing chapter. Milledgeville has got- 
ten over the nine days wonder of Theodore Clarence’s 
conviction and execution. His family, after the death of 
Mrs. Bragg, moved into the country, and Milledgeville 
soon found other things to talk about and wonder over. 
The latest item of interest afloat is the prospective emi- 
gration of Tunstall Clavering. He is going out West — 
going to pull up stakes and leave Milledgeville forever. 
A strange proceeding on his part, considering the fact 
that Milledgeville has shown every disposition to lionize 
him since the late developments in regard to his brother’s 
innocence. But Tunstall Clavering is one of those self- 
contained men who are very little dependent upon the 
world’s smile or frown. He is almost equally indifferent 
to them. There is but one person in Milledgeville whose 
opinion is a matter of much consequence to him, and that 
person, at this particular time, is standing before her 
mirror, engaged in the arrangement of her hair. Com- 
monplace occupation, truly, but significant, withal, in the 
manner of its performance. A woman’s deportment 
before her mirror is more strongly indicative of her exist- 
ing status of mind ancLfeeling than anything else what- 
soever. To a happy woman, the architecture of her 
toilet, in all its branches, is a labor of love always. She 
will linger, with the delight of an artist, over its smallest 
details, adding a finishing touch here, covering over some 
fancied imperfection there. Strange instinct of feminine 
vanity, and yet how powerful, as all Nature’s manifesta- 


A WATCH-KEY. 


287 


tions are. And there is a meaning to them all — an 
MXidi^xXyxw^raisoit d' etre — if we can only fathom it. Neither 
man nor woman has a natural attribute of which he or 
she has no need. Even a woman’s vanity — her love of 
personal adornment — has its place in the economy|of 
nature. Her loveliest traits of character are an out- 
growth, frequently, from that insignificant stem. Woman’s 
love of beauty is an important factor in the world’s evan- 
gelization, and it must have a beginning somewhere. 
When a pretty woman stands before her mirror, engrossed 
in her own pleasing reflection, she has her foot, uncon- 
sciously, upon the lowest round of the stairway upon 
which she may climb to God — which leads upwards and 
upwards, until it reaches the noble platform of that 
beauty worship which, beginning with things temporal, 
must needs go on to things eternal. There is a type of 
man and woman upon whom the influences of beauty are 
simply incalculable — to whom the “ beauty of holiness” 
appeals with more force than any other argument in the 
Bible. There are men and women as sensitively alive to 
spiritual as to physical comeliness, and they have been 
educated up to that moral altitude by the abstract love 
of the beautiful implanted in their natures by God. 

But Emily Arrington is thinking of none of these 
things. She is not even thinking of the face which con- 
fronts her in the mirror, just now. Its beauty has become 
a matter of indifference to her of late, and a woman’s 
indifference to her personal pulchritude means something, 
always. It means heart-break oftener than anything 
else; and it is something very like heart-break which is 
looking out from Emily Arrington’s eyes, as she watches, 
through her chamber window, the tall, soldier-like figure 
of Tunstall Clavering as it crosses the street in the direc- 


288 


A WATCH-KEY. 


tion of the depot. Suddenly he halts and stands for a 
moment, as if in indecision, and then he turns his steps 
in the direction of Miss Arrington’s. He would like 
once more, he thinks, to look upon that beautiful face — 
to carry away with him, in his self-imposed exile, a last 
memory of it. He has parted with its owner formally, 
as her attorney and business agent — has settled with her, 
as he has with his other clients, but his heart yearns, 
now, for a last look into the beautiful eyes, whose beauty 
he has been so long in discovering, but whose memory 
will abide with him, he thinks, through all the years of 
life. 

Slowly he retraces his steps, looking, all the while, 
with the eyes of the mind, upon the lovely, sensitive, 
mobile lace he will soon behold, with the eyes of the body, 
for the last time. 

Miss Arrington is at home, the servant, who answers 
his summons at that lady’s door, tells him. She then 
ushers him into the parlor, which is redolent of the per- 
fume of heliotrope. Tunstall Clavering is not very well 
versed in floral lore, but he recognizes the faint, delicate 
fragrance, the exquisite, fairy-like bloom. They carry 
him back to that dark day upon which he had almost 
despaired of working out his life-problem — the vindica- 
tion of his brother’s memory — and to the emblems she 
had placed upon that brother’s grave in token of her 
delicate sympathy. The memory of that sympathy was 
in Tunstall Clavering’s heart and eyes when the door 
opened and Emily Arrington entered. She was paler 
than was usual with her, but more beautiful than ever, 
the man who looked at her thought, but his thoughts 
were inaudible. He shook hands with her, in quite a 
commonplace way, and said something about not feeling 


A WATCH-KEY. 


289 


like going away without telling her good-bye; and 
took the first convenient chair and slowly and carefully 
dissected an unfortunate rose, which she had taken 
absently from a vase on the centre-table, looking the 
embodiment of polite indifference the while. She asked 
him various questions about his plans and purposes — 
very much as she might have asked an utter stranger — 
and he answered her in a like strain, going into uninter- 
esting details by way of saying something. The conver- 
sation was heavy — very. The weather probabilities were 
exhausted, and then the schedule times of the different 
trains were taken up. There was no reliance to be 
put in them, Mr. Clavering declared. The train he was- 
expecting to leave upon was an hour and a half behind 
time. 

And so his coming to say good-bye was accidental, 
thought Miss Arrington — an pour passer le 

te7nps — and, so thinking, she infused a shade more of 
reserve into her manner. A heavy pause occurred, which 
neither seemed disposed to break. Miss Arrington delib- 
erately counted the leaves of the rose she had depetaled 
and Tunstall Clavering looked at her. Such an intense 
regard his was, that it presently attracted hers. She 
raised her eyes, to see a look in his that the simplest 
woman in the world must have understood. A wave of 
crimson swept into her face and then receded, leaving it 
paler than before; then Tunstall Clavering spoke. 

“ I thought that I would go away without betraying 
myself,” he said; “but what does it matter.? You are 
not a woman to exult over 'a lover more or less, and it 
will do you no harm to know how hopelessly I have learned 
to love you. I have never dreamed of love or marriage 
for myself,” he went on, for she was silent. “ Women 


290 


A WATCH-KEY. 


have been a thing apart from all my thoughts and plans 
in life since — my great trouble. I never thought of you, 
above all, except as a client. I ceased long ago to have 
an individual existence like other, men. Mine was swal- 
lowed up in a purpose — you know what purpose. And 
now that purpose has been accomplished, and I have dis- 
covered that I am a man like other men. I cannot go 
on looking into your face, and transacting your business 
for you, and knowing all the while that I have no exist- 
ence in your thoughts except as your attorney. What 
has brought this midsummer madness upon me I cannot 
tell. At least, I am sane enough to recognize it as a 
madness — sane enough to refrain from committing the 
absurdity of a proposal of marriage. You need not fear 
that I am going to inflict one upon you.” 

And then he rose to leave, but Miss Arrington still sat 
motionless, a conflict of warring emotions in her mind, 
which sent the turbulent blood in crimson flashes through 
her clear olive cheeks. How could he be so obtuse? she 
thought, indignantly ; and how could she cross that bar- 
rier-line of womanly reserve which is so well defined in 
minds like hers, and which she never yet had crossed, to 
extend to any man a hand of encouragement ? She could 
not do it, she determined. A man who took so little 
pains to secure his happiness did not deserve it, she 
thought, and, so thinking, arose and offered Mr. Claver- 
ing a little cold hand which her utmost efforts could not 
prevent from trembling. 

“ Good bye ! ” she said, almost inaudibly. 

“ Good-bye, and God forever bless you ! ” said the man 
who loved her, and then he raised her hand to his lips in 
farewell. 

A moment later he was gone, and she stood transfixed 


A WATCH-KEY. 


291 


to the spot upon which he had left her standing, thinking 
of his wasted life, his wrecked and sorrowing life, for 
fifteen long years, half of an average lifetime. And he 
was going forth to a future as cheerless, going forth to be 
a stranger in a strange land, and he loved her. He had 
told her so, ^nd she had dismissed him, without a word 
of recognition, even, of the high compliment he had paid 
her. He was gone forever. She would never look upon 
him more. He would die, perhaps, unloved and unat- 
tended, in a land of strangers — 

Miss Arrington’s thoughts proceeded no further. They 
were interrupted by a paroxysm of tears. Tunstall 
Clavering, coming back for a glove he had forgotten, sur- 
prised her in the midst of this hysterical outburst. The 
charge of an electric battery could not have thrilled him 
more intensely than did the sight of her tears. What 
could they mean ? 

“ Miss Arrington — Emily ! Can it be possible that God 
has remembered me at last?” 

But she could not answer him. How she had betrayed 
herself, she thought, striving in vain to recover her dig- 
nity. 

“ Emily — can it be possible — do you love me?” 

She turned upon him defiantly, a crimson glow upon 
her cheeks, an ineffable light in her eyes. 

“I have loved you for fifteen years,” she said — “ever 
since I was a little child.” 





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